FOCUS ON HOT SPOTS
China's scientific governance of desertification starts from this small city in Northeast China
Published:
2025-06-17
Shenyang, June 17 (Xinhua) -- (Reporters Wu Jiangmin and Yu Yetong) The southern edge of the Horqin Sandy Land, Zhanggutai Town, Zhangwu County, Liaoning Province. When the wind sweeps through the ten-thousand-mu larch forest, the rustling sound of the pine needles rubbing against each other conceals a little-known story.
Among the 365 days in a year, there are more than 200 windy days. In the 1950s, Zhangwu was well-known far and wide as a "Shawozi". In order to control desertification, the Forestry Experiment Station of Liaoxi Province was established in Zhanggutai Town, Zhangwu County in 1952. This was the predecessor of the Liaoning Province Sand Fixation and Afforestation Research Institute and also the first scientific research institution for sand prevention and control in New China.
Liu Bin, then director of the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Sand Fixation and Afforestation, was attracted by the larch planted in the Greater Khingan Mountains region. This kind of tree can tolerate drought, poor soil and severe cold, but it is mostly concentrated in high-latitude regions. There has been no successful experience of "moving northern trees southward" before.
In the first year of trial planting, due to the drought and lack of water in winter and the strong wind and sand, only two Scotch pines survived in the sandy area. The following year, Liu Bin and his colleagues covered the newly planted Scotch pine saplings with cold-proof soil and carefully cultivated them. Eventually, the new batch of Scotch pines safely overwintered and began to grow normally. Subsequently, the planting area expanded year by year, thus setting a precedent for Scotch pine afforestation and sand control.
In 1978, the afforestation technology of Scotch pine on sandy wastelands won the National Science Conference Award. Today, the Scotch pine has become the main tree species for sand prevention and control in the "Three Norths" region. It has been promoted in places such as Saihanba in Hebei Province and Yulin in Shaanxi Province, covering a total area of over 10 million mu.
In Zhangwu County, apart from scientific researchers like Liu Bin, there have emerged many ordinary yet great sand control workers, and Li Dongkui is one of them.
In 1987, Li Dongkui, a veteran, came to the Alxiang Forest Protection Point of Zhanggutai Forest Farm with an old horse and a water bottle to work as a forest ranger. He took care of 8,500 mu of Scotch pine forests in an environment without water or electricity. Li Dongkui said that in the vast mountain forest, he was the only one. "At night, I could hear the cries of wolves and snakes would occasionally crawl into the bed."
Even so, Li Dongkui persisted and has been doing this for over 30 years. These trees were all planted one by one by the Liaoning Province Sand Fixation and Afforestation Research Institute back then. They have just grown into small trees and must be well protected. This is the lifeblood of Zhangwu's sand control efforts. Li Dongkui said.
Thanks to the efforts of generations of sand control workers, six ten-thousand-mu mobile sand dunes in Zhangwu County have been fixed, and the proportion of sandy land area has decreased from 96% in the early 1950s to 36.56%. The number of sand-lifting days has dropped from 43 days in 1953 to an average of 5 days per year in the past decade.
In 2018, the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Sand Fixation and Afforestation and the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Wind-Sandy Land Improvement and Utilization were merged to form the Liaoning Academy of Agricultural Sciences Institute of Sandy Land Control and Utilization (referred to as the Sandy Land Institute). In recent years, the Sandy Land Institute has established seedling bases for tree species such as the Scotch pine, organized expert teams to conduct centralized training for the masses, and transferred the technology to local farmers for free. At present, the area of larch seedling cultivation in Zhanggutai Town alone exceeds 10,000 mu, with an annual output of approximately 2 billion seedlings of various types.
In April this year, over 3,000 saplings of Scotch pine, spruce and larch were inspected by the customs at the Erlianhot Road Port and then transported to Mongolia. These tree species, represented by the Scotch pine, have strong adaptability to climate and soil, can tolerate drought, poor soil and cold, and will gradually take root in the deserts of Mongolia.
From the Horqin Sandy Land to the "Three Norths" region, China's scientific desertification control, starting from a small northeastern city, is a journey of struggle from "sand advancing and people retreating" to "greenery advancing and sand retreating". Now, this green is crossing national boundaries, bringing new hope to global desertification control.