Fighting Desertification Means to Choose Loneliness

Looking Forward to Attention and Support

Sand-fighters Need to Accumulate Experience

Explore New Sand-fighting Mechanism

Not for Our Own Homes Only

Fifty-year-old Song Defu, a farmer of Gulang County in northwest China’s Gansu Province, witnessed the beautiful scene of the sandy land lying in front of him. In those old days, cattle and goats grazed on the grassland. The plants were so flourishing that only when a wind breezed could you see the herds. Song and his fellow villagers enjoyed their life of animal-herding and made money out of it. They eventually became well-to-do. But as the grassland degenerated at a breakneck speed, the grassland faded away, and so did their prosperity.

“If we don’t engage ourselves in sand-control projects, not only the animals cannot get enough forage, even I myself will have difficulty in finding something to eat,” said Song Defu. Bingcaowan, Song’s home village, is situated on the eastern border of Gulang County, on the southern edge of the Tengger Desert.

Hongshatan, the former pasture, has retrograded into one of the 16 sandstorm thresholds along the 132 km sand line of north Gulang County. Livestock have nowhere to graze. Farmers here would be happy if they could harvest only 50 percent of the grain supposed to grow in the same size of fields in other places.

While other villagers were planning resettlement in other places, Song came to a different idea: he decided to rebuild a green home for the future generations by planting grass and trees on the sandy land.

Many sand-fighters are actually those who destroyed the ecology inadvertently. In the past, no one ever told them about the relationship between ecological protection and sustained development. But the fact of desert encroaching their fields has made it clear that without a green land, they will lose their homes.

In early 2000, Song sold his 18 oxen and 140-odd goats to sign a contract of forestation on a wasteland of 666 hectares. Since then, Song has no any income except a tiny turnout of wheat from his infertile fields. Despite the economic loss, Song felt relieved. In the past two years, Song planted trees on about half of the contracted wasteland. Lush and green Elaeagnusangustifolia [known as shazao in Chinese] now grows out of the previously barren land; flourishing bushes of huabang [a kind of mesquite plant in the desert] stand against the farmland shelter forest; Chinese rosewoods sway in the breeze. The wasteland has been revitalized.

“In remote villages, we used to take building a bridge or repairing a road as a big deal of beneficence. Now we all say planting grass and trees is more beneficiary,” Song said. The hardship of sand-fighting has made the man care more about green. “I have heard about Japanese coming to China to harness sandstorm. After I read the story in a newspaper, I knew they did this in fear of possible sandstorm originated in China to affect Japan. When I successfully cover the sandy wasteland with green, I’m sure, no matter how strong the wind is, no sand will be blown up from here,” he said.

Certainly Song Defu never dispels out of his mind the idea to make a profit from his sand-fighting project. “When the sandy wasteland is ready, I plan to build a forest belt of one kilometer long and 10 meters wide, and in the middle area, I’ll plant forage grass to develop stock breeding,” Song said. By that time, Song will become a farmer engaged in stock breeding, fruit growing and tree planting. “We must protect trees from being cut down and the grassland over-grazed.” Song does know it’s a key to realizing his long-term plan.

Fighting Desertification Means to Choose Loneliness

Whatever an optimistic expectation for the future, it cannot offset Song’s current problems. During the days when Song was famous in the area for his affluence, friends and relatives often resorted to him for their financial difficulties. After he chose to harness the sandy wasteland, he not only invested all his money into the project but also had to, occasionally, borrow money from friends and relatives, which was not well understood by some of those. The sharp change of his own financial situation was hard for him to accept.

To many farmer sand-fighters, a piece of wasteland means a bottomless hole devouring their money. And the lack of understanding and support makes them feel as being trapped in a helpless abyss. Song Defu is not the only one who has such experience. Li Peirui, a businessman of Minqin County of Gansu, who has also chosen to become a sand-fighter, often finds himself in a dilemma.

Li owns a hotel and a construction team in Minqin County. In the spring of 1995, Li inked a contract to harness 400 hectares of sandy lands bordering the Tengger Desert. He worked out a plan and built forest strips with great confidence, hoping to make profit from the comprehensive development in this area. However, six years have passed and the sandy land has not changed much. Instead of making profit, he is in a heavy debt of 2.5 million yuan (around US$300,000).

“A single strong wind can bury all the trees we’ve just planted and the fields we leveled. We have to restart again and again. This kind of seesaw battle usually happens over 10 times every year. We suffer a loss of 300,000 yuan (US$36,290.6) a year for seedlings, not mentioning the labor cost.” Li said. However, compared with fierce battle with sandstorms, according to Li, the lack of understanding by and support from outsiders was even harder for him to go with.

Objectively, a future return in profit is a big motivation for the sand-fighters who have invested in ecological environment projects. Song Defu’s goal is to turn the sandy wasteland into a comprehensive farmland of live stocking, forest and fruit trees. Li Peirui also wishes to engage in agriculture-related businesses after he successfully harnesses the sandy lands. Government departments hold that contractors, who have to bear the risk of an environmental project, should be benefited from their investments, but at the same time, these investors should be responsible for the fund needed. So far, these investors have not yet received any financial support from the government. Since an ecological project is costly in investment, long-termed in circulation cycle and slow in turnout and often subjects to natural factors, banks and financial institutes are reluctant to grant them loans. It is hard for common farmers to understand why people like Song Defu and Li Peirui persist in pursuing such a costly and risky cause.

Li said with a bitter smile: “I really have no one to complain to and I have no idea either if I can continue what I’ve been doing. An individual can never be strong enough to withstand sandstorms. May be I am on a road destined to losses, but I can’t give up after I put so much money and painstaking efforts in it.” Six years of sand-fighting experience filled Li’s heart with bewilderments: “The entire society will be the victim if we allow the sandstorm to run riot. But why does everyone else just stand by idly?”

Looking Forward to Attention and Support

“You can struggle with the heaven and the earth, but never struggle with sandstorms.” Many individual sand-fighters conclude painfully.

The 400 hectares of land contracted by Li Peirui is only a small palm in the vast sea of desert. He hopes an increasing number of people will join him in this sand-fighting battle. Only when more and more people join hands to boost large-scale sand-fighting projects can sandstorms be weakened and the environment as a whole improved. But Li has found no companion. “How could they dare to follow my suit after they see my plight?” Li said with a forced smile while shaking his head.

While sandstorms become more and more powerful, many sand-fighters are stepping back. This phenomenon has attracted attentions from many local government departments. Dunhuang city in northeast Gansu Province has included the land contracted by individual sand-fighters into the Volunteer Tree-Planting Project. Dunhuang municipal officials and Party officials took the lead in planting trees in those sand-fighters’ lands. Gulang County also issued a document entitled “Gulang County Property Reform Scheme on Managerial Authority of Forest and Woodland.” The county adopts methods such as auctioning woodland servitude, section-divided contracting, joint investment and household contracting to encourage farmers to get involved in environmental projects. Farmers are the mainstay of sand-fighting investment and they should receive preferential financial support. Of the 100 hectares of forested land Song Defu worked on last year, 78 percent of the trees survived. The county forestry bureau offered him free seedlings and an allowance of 112 yuan (US$13.5) for labor cost for each successfully forested hectare of land. Though the 10,000 yuan (US$1,209.69) he received from the government was much less than his actual expenditure of 70,000 to 80,000 yuan (US$8,500-9,700), it was very helpful and supportive to Song.

Individual sand-fighting investment will help build a solid base of environmental protection and turn out an ecological benefit to the society as a whole, said Yao Guangxing, director of Gulang County’s forestry bureau. Therefore, he believes, it is reasonable and urgent to protect these people’s initiatives and give them full support.

Individual sand-fighters welcome supportive policies from local governments. At the same time, they hope the adopted supportive policies will be tailored to meet their specific demands.

First, the problem of funding, the bottleneck of sand-fighting investment, should be solved. Zhao Huaiming, a sand-fighting investor in Dunhuang City, said that the government should give individual sand-fighters the same support in seedling and labor cost allowances as to government-owned forestry centers since they, too, are protecting the ecology and the interest of the entire society. Banks allocate a certain amount of ecology construction loans every year, but these loans only fall into government- and collectively-owned forestry centers, leaving individual sand-fighters deserted. Many individual sand-fighters hold that government departments should break the boundary between “public” and “private” in ecology projects.

Secondly, government departments should offer technical guidance to individual sand-fighters. Li Peirui said that the 10,000 Caragana korshimskiis and 10,000 elms he planted in 1995 all died of alkali soil. He believed the big loss could have been avoided if he had been guided by a technician. Li Peirui once tried to recruit some college graduates majored in forestry but failed to attract anyone because his was a private enterprise. Li said that professional technicians in forestry departments were so busy with state-owned woodland and public forests that a self-employed sand- fighter’s need could never be put on their agendas. “Without technical guidance,” Li said, “I could only get half of the result though I made double efforts.”

Thirdly, the government should adopt more measures to encourage more individuals to join the sand-control campaign. “When people are united, they can remove Mount Tai,” as the saying goes. Sand-fighting demands massive participants and large scales of investment. Many individual sand-fighters hold that the biggest problem of volunteering trees-planting is the weak afterwards maintenance, which leaves no trees at all despite the yearly planting. Individual sand-fighting investors have solved the problem of maintenance. Obviously, if there are more individual sand-fighters, the cost of ecology protection will be reduced and the efficiency will be remarkably raised.

Sand-fighters Need to Accumulate Experience

Shi Shuzhu is a well-known “sand-fighting hero” in Minqin County situated in the intersection of Tengger Desert and Badanqiaolin Desert. Though he started his sand-fighting career as a Party secretary who was leading the whole village on the course, he has confronted with most problems troubling other individual sand-fighters. His experience may give today’s sand-fighters some inspirations.

Inspiration I: Sand fighting requires perseverance. Forty years ago, Shi Shuzhu’s village, Songhe, was extremely poverty-stricken. Its fertile farmlands were encroached by the desert and many villagers were forced to consider resettlement. “When you climbed to a high point and looked around, you saw nothing but sand; when winds blew, the houses disappeared in dust; the sands piled up as high as the wall, making it easy for a donkey to walk on the roof.” In the 1950s, 30-odd of the villages’ more than 200 families left their hometown. In 1955, 19-year-old Shi Shuzhu and six young fellow-villagers went to the bank of the Dasha River lying to the east of the village and started their cause of sand-control.

But the trees they planted were either uprooted by gales or berried dead by quicksand. For 8 years, Shi Shuzhu replanted trees again and again. Shi said that there was no exact word to express his distress and depression during those years. His young partners drew back. When Shi called on other villagers to join him, he was always responded with words such as “Our ancestors from generation to generation failed to plant a single tree in this sandy place. If you Shi Shuzhu want to flaunt your ability, just go ahead. But we don’t want to suffer from such fruitless hardships.” Shi said that the proverb “it takes 10 years to plant a tree” explains the hardship of tree-growing, but to plant a tree in a sandy place was much harder. Most of the villagers could not afford the cost of failure. Shi Shuzhu, however, stuck to his job uncompromisingly. Shi said the repeated failures were not so dreadful to him because he believed they helped him gain useful experience. The more experiences you accumulate, the smoother your road ahead will become. By now, Shi has spent four decades on this road. He said: “You may choose not to fight sand; otherwise you must be determined to go through to the end. Perseverance is the sole trump to squelch the sand demon.”

Inspiration II: Sand-fighting requires you to endure indescribable hardships. The biggest problem of individual sand-fighting is the lack of fund. Shi Shuzhu said that Songhe Village was so poor that the villagers could not even get enough to eat, leaving alone buying seedlings for afforestation and straws to cover the sands. “Without money, we got to figure out some stupid but less costly ways,” Shi said. Today, Songhe is in a blessing shade of trees, with a forest network covering the whole area. The key point of Songhe's success lies in its villagers' hardworking and persistence, with which they were able to fulfill a task otherwise could hardly be done even with enough money, according to Shi Shuzhu.

“Cover sands with soils, plant trees in drought thresholds” is a good example of Shi’s “stupid” sand-fighting methods. Trees cannot be planted in quicksand unless you cover it with straws to stop its flow. But Songhe Village was too poor to afford even straws. Shi proposed to cover sands with soils. Then, at the foot of sand dunes, men were busy pushing wheelbarrows and carts with wooden wheels to carry clays; on the dunes, the elderly and women were moving clays bit by bit with various baskets. Under quick sands on the edge of the desert were all solid sandstones and hard clay layers on which spades and pick-axes could dig no hole. To plant trees in this area, Shi led villagers to hammer in drill robs to make holes. Blisters in the laborers’ hands soon blew up, with blood streaming out and coloring the drill robs. With painstaking efforts, Songhe villagers dug thousands of holes along the desert edge and planted the hope of green in every spring. Shi said that though more materials and efficient methods are available now, the fund-lacking sand-fighters still need to further explore ways of “more sweat, more hardship and less costly.” The demon of sand cannot be beaten without resolute efforts.

Inspiration Ⅲ: Diligent consideration and continuous study are necessary for a sand-fighter. Shi Shuzhu said that sand-fighting needs science and new technology. Therefore, individual sand fighters must continue their studies to learn more scientific and practical ideas in this area. Though the primitive method of “carrying soils to cover sands” worked for Shi, he never stopped searching for a more advanced way. During the “culture revolution” (1966-76), some technicians specialized in sand-control were sent to Songhe Village to receive the so-called ideological re-education. This offered a great opportunity for Shi Shuzhu to learn from them. Under the excuse of “holding criticizing meetings”, Shi brought these technicians to his sand dunes to give lectures on sand-control techniques. Though life was hard for the villagers of Songhe, Shi tried every means to provide food to these technicians. Thanks to their guidance, the villagers learned how to plant a tree by covering sands with bound straws. In this period Songhe villagers expanded their afforestation area with an average of 300 mu per year.

“Actually, people in sandy regions have developed many successful experiences that can be used by individual sand-fighters.” Shi said. Professional technical guidance is certainly nice, but sand-fighters should also learn from others’ experiences. He said that he would be glad to share his experiences with other sand-fighters if they are willing to learn.

Inspiration Ⅳ: Sand-fighting must be combined with ecological and financial benefits. Now Songhe Village is developing itself in a model of “fighting sand in the outskirts, building forestry network in the village proper and developing cash forests according to local conditions.” Straw-made sand-blocks have been planted widely on sand dunes around Songhe Village while anti-drought shrubberies such as Haloxylon ammodandron are planted to stabilize moving sand dunes. Trees such as Elaeagnus angustifolias and tarmarisks are grown to form a windbreak network along the desert’s edge. Cash trees such as apple and Elaeagnus angustifolias are planted around farmlands, ditches and houses to build a frontline against sandstorms. Shi nicknamed this model “a mother hugging her baby” which experts from the Forestry Ministry named it “Songhe Model”.

Shi said that it is impossible to have the sand-fighting program carried on if you only put money into it and make no profit out of it. In that case, nobody would like to plant more trees and those planted may not survive in next generations’ hands. Therefore he suggests sand-fighters work out a good layout at the beginning so as to plant cash trees in appropriate places and eventually expand the forest towards the desert edge. In this way, it would be possible to generate an income to be recycled into ecological construction, and sand-fighting can go into a beneficial circulation to greatly reduce the investor’s financial burden. In the four decades of struggling with sand, Shi shed sweat, blood and tears. Finally when Songhe Village obtained lots of farmland and trees and its 1700-odd villagers could make an annual turnout of over 3 million yuan, Shi enjoyed the pleasure of a winner. Shi received many praises and honors in recent years, but he said sincerely that many other sand-fighters also deserve praise for their spirit and courage while taking into account the sufferings and hardships they have gone through. He calls on the whole society to keep caring and supporting these people because every bit of support and encouragement will mean a piece of green added to the land.

Explore New Sand-fighting Mechanism

The appearance of individual sand-fighters breaks the old model of relying on the state only for sand-control programs. It goes in line with the state’s western Region Development policies and measures. Many western Region people hold that a new sand-fighting mechanism should be established and new methods be explored so as to urge the government, farmers, private entrepreneurs, enterprises and science research institutes to join hands to make a breakthrough in promoting individual sand-fighting programs. Wang Jie, deputy director of the Gansu Provincial Sand-control Research Institute, said that the key of uniting these five categories of sand-fighters lies in reshuffling sand-fighting methods. Fighting sands without well-defined goals and economical planning is the principle reason making sand-fighting so hard, according to Wang Jie. Without economical benefits, the government would find it harder and harder to work out a program in this area and all kinds of social forces will not join in this kind of ecological improvement projects. Therefore, the three concepts of ecological, economical and social benefits must be integrated into sand-control programs so as to attract more people to join their efforts.

First, governments at various levels should be the mainstream of sand- control planning and guidance. Forestry departments hold that the government should certainly play a leading role as ecological and social benefits are the primary goal of sand-control. Of course, social investment should be encouraged in some relatively better conditioned districts. Due to a lack of well-defined general planning by government departments, it is hard to develop sand-fighting into an industry because the sand-control contractors are scattered and each of them struggles ahead alone with his or her own personal visions.

Secondly, the official and individual sand-fighters should complement and support each other. Wang Shengde, director of the forestry bureau of Jiuquan Prefecture, said that only the government and civil forces support and complement each other can we undertake this arduous ecological harness task since any single force cannot bear it solely. But in real life, disseverance is still rampant. Zhao Huaiming, a self-employed sand-fighting investor, couldn’t help wailing when he said that people have been called on to “fight with the heaven and to fight with the earth”, but there has never been the mention of fighting with the sand. Zhao has invested over 4 million yuan but got no income since he contracted the biggest sandstorm threshold northeast of Dunhuang city in 1995. He sighed with emotion and said that it is too difficult for an individual sand-fighter without any government support.

Thirdly, farmers’ participation must be combined with poverty relief and prosperity pursuit. In the past, farmers were required not only to work for sand-fighting programs as volunteers but also to contribute materials such as straws and firewood. Their initiative gradually diminished. Therefore, a system should be worked out to give financial rewards to farmers who have taken an active part in sand-fighting programs. At least, they should not be the ones to suffer losses caused by sand-fighting activities. The practice of use work remuneration for loans has been adopted in many poverty-relief projects in poor areas. A similar practice should also be employed in ecological construction so as to promote farmers’ initiatives and reward them with financial benefits.

Fourthly, research institutes should go to sand-fighting frontlines to explore feasible methods. Wang Jie said that many desert experts conduct their research only in a theoretical level, offering few feasible suggestions. Research institutes must change their sand-control research directions to study and review ecological construction plans and take sand-control as part of the comprehensive development. Only in such way, can they provide useful and feasible suggestions to the government and all sand-fighters.

Fifthly, the mechanism of multi-investment should be explored. A system for scientific ecological construction investment has not been established. Liang Ai, a self-employed sand-fighting investor, has made some initial progress in a sandstorm threshold harness project near Yueya Spring in Dunhuang city. But what he has achieved is far from his goal because of desperately short of fund. Liang Ai has asked for financial support from government and relative departments. He does not understand why the local government and the forestry and water conservancy departments prefer to use their money to support the poor directly rather investing the money into individual enterprises and buy stocks to join ecological construction projects.

(china.org.cn, translated by Alex, August 6, 2002)