China makes strides in desertification control

Years of painstaking efforts, patience, commitment and dedication has turned a vast desert in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China into a semi-forest to the amazement of both visitors and residents of the region.

For 60 years the people in the area have devoted themselves to the war against desertification and have in the process established a green barrier of 37,000 hectares.

The Baijitan Sand Break at Lingwu, Ningxia Province continues to attract visitors from other parts of China and outside to witness what some people describe as a miracle.

More than 80 per cent of the east of Lingwu, near Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region are surrounded by the Mu Us Desert which have severely affected the lives of people who have lived there for generations.

And for his efforts, the Director of the Desertification Control Forest Farm, Mr Wang Youde has been awarded the honorary title of "desertification control hero" by China' State Council, elected as one of the "double-hundred figures who moved China" and the most influential model worker since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

And to witness this wonder and other projects in the province, nine senior journalists from Africa who are participating the China Africa Press Centre Programme have visited the Ningxia Province.

It is amazing how Mr Wang and his team of workers have been able to stop the desert from eating up the area and deprive the people of their livelihood.

Mr Wang told the visiting journalists that his outfit has since 2000 boosted desertification prevention control at the speed of 2,000 hectares per year and creates a miracle in the history of desertification control.

Mechanism
Watching the workers trying to turn the dry desert into forest, one gets the sense that it is going to be an impossible task for man to fight nature.

First to stabilise the sand, the workers arrange straw in the shape of cubes and dig small holes in order to check erosion during the rainy season.

Families and individuals are organised for competitive bidding and sign deadline contracts to make sure that both the grass and trees planted survived.

Mr Wang explained that up till now his outfit had developed a 1000 hectare economic fruit forest and 67 hectares of grass for breeding in the desert as part of the project.

The result of the desertification control has changed the ecological environment, reduced weather disasters and protected a large area of fertile farmland from sand erosion.

"The personal experience brought by environmental improvement has given the public a profound lesson", Mr Wang stated.

He added that some farmers around the forest farm have consciously become forest rangers and earn huge sums of money through their participation in the afforestation.

The project has been able to prevent the Mu Us Desert from southward and westward expansion, restraining the intrusion of silt into the Yellow River, the major river in the area used for irrigation projects.

Mr Wang said the project was not only to halt the advancing desert in the area but also China's contribution toward enhancing ecological environmental protection globally.

Afforestation Projects in Ghana
In Ghana a lot is being done to replant some parts of the depleted forest in the middle belt of the country.
In addition efforts are also being done to plant trees in some parts of the north to serve as a break to the advancing Sahara desert.

However, these efforts are being thwarted through illegal logging, sand winning, illegal mining of minerals and bush fires.

Ghana is blessed to have conducive vegetation but through activities mentioned above, the country's forest cover is gradually depleting at an alarming rate.

If vigorous measures are not taken to check these activities, the entire Ghana territory would be caught up with the Sahara desert in some years to come.

It is taking China a lot of money to control the desert in its Western part, in the Ningxia and we do not have the luxury to wait until our forest is totally depleted and turned into desert before we act decisively.

Even though some efforts are being made there is the need for more to be done to achieve the desired results.

A stitch in time saves nine, so goes a Ghanaian proverb.

Writer's email: nanadu63@gmail.com/emmanuel.gyamerah@graphic.com.gh