Japanese NGO has been working hard to reforest Inner Mongolian desert
Grace Chua, Straits Times 29 Aug 09;
GANQIKA TOWN (INNER MONGOLIA): For decades, the desert sands of Inner Mongolia have crept south, swallowing whole villages and turning six million hectares of grassland into barren waste each year.
But even as northern China confronts its worst drought in 60 years, with five million people lacking access to water, one small fraction of the desert is getting a little bit greener.
The scrubby, 1,800ha area in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, about 700km north-east of Beijing, has help from a Japanese non-profit organisation named Green Network.
It operates in tandem with Chinese and Japanese universities, and corporate sponsors like electronics giant Hitachi and United States outdoor apparel brand Timberland, which sends volunteers from its Japan and Asia-Pacific offices, including Singapore.
In 2000, Green Network began planting trees and shrubs in Inner Mongolia's Horqin desert - an area 56 times the size of Singapore.
Their roots grip the soil and rows of tall pines and poplars serve as windbreaks.
It also works with local communities to water, prune and maintain the reforested areas, and educates them on sustainable agricultural practices.
Traditionally, people in the area herded sheep and goats. But over the past six decades, overpopulation, overgrazing and agriculture have taxed the land; Inner Mongolia's population has quadrupled to about 24 million, and the number of sheep, cows and goats has shot up to match.
These animals munch the grass down to its roots, faster than it can grow back.
The sun and wind then strip the top layers of exposed soil, speeding up water loss and leaving the earth less fertile.
Local Green Network staff member Tana, 25, an ethnic Mongolian, remembers how the shifting dunes crept up to the edge of her parents' house in the far north-west.
'When I was small, the sands came up to the back of the house and almost covered the whole house, so we had to move,' she said.
Sandstorms are common in spring. The haze causes breathing problems, grounds air traffic and even reaches as far as Japan and Korea.
Last month, a Japanese study using Nasa space agency satellites found that dust storms from China's north-western Taklimakan Desert circled the globe in 13 days.
Yet when Green Network first tried to explain to villagers what they did, they were scoffed at, says the organisation's co-founder and vice-president Yoshio Kitaura, 39.
So the group took a 'show, not tell' tack, and the strategy has worked.
For example, to demonstrate the importance of letting the land recover before it is grazed again, Green Network workers planted brush on a patch of land and divided the area with a fence.
Half of the land was used for grazing; the other half was untouched.
Two years later, Mr Kitaura, who with his enthusiasm and wild hair resembles a younger version of former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, stands before the field and sweeps his arms wide.
'Look at this,' he says in Japanese, sweeping his arms in a gesture towards the pristine half, which is green and lush. On the other half, ankle-high brush struggles to take root.
'Now, the locals ask us to come in and help green their land,' he says.
The organisation is also winning over local workers young and old, such as Miss Tu Xingbo, 25, who joined a month ago.
Miss Tu took a pay cut from her previous job as a salesgirl as she felt tree planting was more meaningful work.
'Previously, nothing grew, and my parents' herds of cows and horses were halved,' she says. 'Now the grassland is back.'
To date, Japanese and local employees of Green Network have planted about 3.9 million native trees such as poplars and pines, as well as sea buck-thorn and other shrubs.
Though only half the trees manage to grow in the harsh climate, the surviving plants help to lessen the intensity of sandstorms.
Green Network is part of a larger reforestation drive in China.
Other initiatives to plant trees include the country's Great Green Wall programme, started in 1978; Maple Leaf, a Canadian company which grows seedlings for landscaping and reforestation projects; and OISCA, a Japanese non-governmental organisation.
China's most ambitious project, the government-run Great Green Wall, aims to plant trees over a 4,500km, 36,000 sq km strip by the 2070s, but it has run into glitches such as overfarming and pollution.
And threats to reforestation remain, such as the underlying problems of overgrazing and overconsumption, as well as logging in other parts of northern China and urban development.
The future of the land is in question, Mr Kitaura says.
'Hopefully, the local people will understand that sustainably grazed land is better for their herds, and continue the greening.'
caiwj@sph.com.sg
GIVING NATURE A HAND
Green Network officer Takashi Otaki pruning poplar trees to help them grow so they can be better windbreaks.
KEEPING THE DESERT OUT STARK CONTRAST
Green Network founder Yoshio Kitaura showing the contrast between still green grassland (in the background) and land in the final stages of desertification near Tongliao. The non-profit organisation has been planting trees and shrubs in Inner Mongolia's Horqin desert since 2000.
GOING NATIVE
A Green Network member planting pine saplings that will also serve as windbreaks. About 3.9 million native trees, such as poplars and pines, have been planted in the desert of Inner Mongolia. Though only half of the trees survive the harsh climate, those that survive help to lessen the intensity of sandstorms.
In Singapore
Straits Times 29 Aug 09;
SINGAPORE has boosted its green cover from 36 per cent in 1987 to 47 per cent in 2007. But it has not always been a garden city.
In the 1840s, there were 600 plantations growing gambier, a leaf used medicinally and as an ingredient in chewed betel nuts.
Primary forests were cleared to grow more of the cash crop, and by 1883, just 7 per cent of the island was still forested.
Up till the 1950s, the business district was treeless.
The first government tree-planting campaign took place in 1963, and since the Garden City programme was launched in 1967, over 1.3 million trees have been planted.
Today, the National Parks Board plants 50,000 to 60,000 trees each year. These trees:
# Take in carbon dioxide from the air.
# Are aesthetically pleasing.
# Provide shade and help lower ambient temperatures.
Singapore's trees are a small addition to efforts like the United Nations Environment Programme's Billion Tree Campaign.
The campaign aims to get governments, companies and individuals around the world to plant seven billion trees by the end of this year.
