How China turns desert into forest

Watch next: "Why Africa is building the Great Green Wall"
China is trying to turn its desert into a forest. Could it work?

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China is at war with the desert—and the desert is winning. In the past 40 years, China has lost roughly 15% of its entire land area to desertification, an area roughly twice the size of Texas. Sandstorms ravage the country, turning the sky yellow and causing deadly air pollution everywhere from Mongolia to Beijing.

#regenerativeagriculture
#greeningthedesert

[upsmaya]

I love how Americans would use ANYTHING to measure sizes, except the metric system :D Texas, Manhatton, Ireland

[brighthorse]

No matter what, China's fighting spirit against the desert is respectable and a responsible performance, while our allies are discharging nuclear-contaminated water into the sea. Which one is the civilization we need?

[tabethalilliane]

I'm Chinese, although westerners don't like anything we do, but planting trees is what we are doing to protect the earth's environment. It’s okay if you don’t like it, but please don’t slander that afforestation is destroying the earth, let alone the Swedish environmental protection girl, saying that protecting the environment a hundred times is not as practical as planting a tree yourself

[haraldbull]

Let's just appreciate that china is even doing this. No western country would get this done.

[rileyjdavies]

Production quality is so high for such a small channel.

Hope you’re the next big channel, you clearly deserve it 🤞🏻

[nabeelzafar]

Monoculture is a necessity here. You can't put trees in the desert, you need an ecosystem there, to achieve that they make 3 Phase plan.
In phase 1 they are placing a type of tree that can sustain the desert heat and these trees will reduce the temperate and make the area suitable for other types of trees. This will also increase the rain and slowly the ecosystem will develop after that Phase 2 will start when more diverse places can be placed. These new plants eventually overtake the forest and slowly find their balance based on their environment.

[RebeccaBrand]

Fascination video - I like as well that this video does not tear down China. In a positive way WREN discusses the issues and offers solutions, and many perspectives.

[durhamdf]

Apparently only 20% of the planted trees survived because they basically gave no thought to planting biodiverse fauna or plants that are acclimated for the areas they were planted in…Just planting trees can help delay the inevitable but it doesn’t change the underlying conditions that cause desertification in the first place. Basically they will need to be planting trees around the clock forever. I’m more interested in their south to north water transfer project honestly.

[victorsy]

The lady at the end should be made into project manager with a small team and be funded to restore the ecosystem in her area

[thornil]

The same thing is happening at the border of the Sahel, with worse results. It is a very difficult problem. The people who live in those areas are usually the poorer lesser educated... And we expect them to understand what they are doing with no immediate benefit for them.

[RAKIBKHAN-gmdx]

I thought there was glitch in subs. Cant believe you only got 600+ subscribers. Maintain this type of quality and education you will be one of big channel brother.

[jeffreylai]

lol the amount of salt here is a thousand times more than oceans altogether 🤣🤣🤣

[YoucefBouzouina]

Can't believe you only got 600+ subscribers! few years from now i'll be proud to say that I was one of your first subscribers. Because I'm sure it will reach hundreds of thousands. Keep it up!

[asawapaul]

China has spend a lot of money in this project, but if they do nothing then they will have to pay even more.

[br]

It seems to me that the following approach should work guaranteed well:
1. A bamboo farm is established nearby (it has 0.9 m/day growth rate);
2. These cheap anti-insect-treated 10-30 m high bamboo piles are dug regularly and a film is stretched over them, reducing the water evaporation by 10-20 times; trees are planted between the piles;
3. If the soil is sandy or non-fertile, or it is a steppe-like soil (meaning that only its upper layer can hold water, which is enough for grass, but not trees), then solved cellulose is added to the soil;
4. Water pipes are added for continuous watering.

[lionelwong]

China's forest coverage rate rose sharply from a mere 8.6 percent in 1949 to 23.04 percent by the end of 2020.
Data from NASA satellites shows that China and India are leading the increase in greening on land.

[konstantinrebrov]

This is really how you save the environment, by planting trees and undoing desertification, not by micromanaging the lives of business owners and regular people.

[.........]

If the tree lives even a year the debris left over will provide more surface area that's shaded that will produce more water conservation which will give the ecosystem more water over time as it will stop runoff and evaporation

[AhauLobo]

I am the 815th Subscriber, yipee! Thank you for bringing light onto this project, I had no idea it was happening! Thank you for bringing up the harmful side-effects of just planting 1 species...planting trees is not complicated but making them last long-term in a thriving ecosystem is.

I hope you, your company and channel do amazing! Can't wait to see more entertaining and positive videos like this.

[pafry]

This channel is amazing! I hope that you will continue in information people about topics such this.