There are many topics I’d like to write about—books, history, current events, and my own life stories, both past and present, as well as news from China.
Recently, I came across an inspiring story about the Kubuqi Desert (库布齐沙漠) (Kù bù qí shā mò). Located in the southern part of Inner Mongolia, it is the 7th largest desert in China, covering approximately 18,600 square kilometers (7,200 square miles), about the same size as the U.S. state of New Jersey. Notably, it is the closest large desert to Beijing, situated about 800 kilometers away. The Kubuqi Desert has a long history, stretching back over 3,000 years to the Western Zhou Dynasty.
What makes this story extraordinary is that the Kubuqi Desert has become a global model for desert reclamation and ecological restoration. Through large-scale desertification control efforts, one-third of this once barren land has been transformed into plant-covered areas, even showing promise for agriculture.
In 1988, the Elion Resources Group spearheaded this ambitious project, combining government policy, corporate involvement, and community engagement. Over the past three decades, this collaboration has achieved what many would consider a miracle. Using a mix of afforestation, water management, sand-fixing technologies, and research on drought-resistant plants, along with strong community participation, the yellow has gradually turned green.
Today, one-third of the arid wasteland is now thriving oasis, home to sand willow forests, grasslands, and even a thin layer of soil, indicating that the land may one day support farming.
Also important, the desert reclamation has drastically reduced the frequency of sandstorms, once averaging 50 sandstorms a year, now just one annually.
Over 100,000 local people have been lifted out of poverty through innovative initiatives such as tree planting, licorice farming, and solar energy projects, proving that ecological restoration can go hand in hand with economic development. Also the sand sedimentation is drastically reduced in the Yellow River because of this.
In 2017, Time magazine highlighted the significance of this project in an article titled China’s Greening of the Vast Kubuqi Desert is a Model for Land Restoration Projects Everywhere—a true testament to the power of human innovation and collaboration in the face of environmental challenges.
The Kubuqi Desert’s transformation is an example of what is possible when innovation, determination, and collaboration come together. This once barren expanse now serves as a symbol of hope—for both China and the world—proving that humanity has the capacity to heal the planet, one desert at a time, reclaiming both land and the future.