The anti-desert struggle in Xinjiang has achieved world-renowned advances. This was released at a meeting to mark the 10th World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on June 16 in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Chaired by Prof. Cheng Xi, Vice Director of the CAS Xinjiang Institute of Biology and Geography, the meeting was attended by over 200 officials and scholars.
Xinjiang's vast territory is arid, land-locked and notorious for its serious trend of desertification. It covers about 716,000 square kilometers of Gobi desert, accounting for about 43% of the region's total land surface. Nearly half of China's Gobi desert is located in Xinjiang. Still, 155,000 square kilometers of its land mass, or 9.8% of the national total, is now under constant threat of desertification.
With the help of CAS researchers, the native populace in Xinjiang has thrown themselves in the campaign against the desert invasion by joining hands with the various ethnical communities across the region. If viewed from the achievements of overall rehabilitation, the region ranks itself at the frontline in today's worldwide strife against deserts.
Xinjiang has made progress in comprehensive surveys of its desert resources and environment, and this is closely integrated with the control and development of the desertified wildernesses. In the campaign, scientists lead local inhabitants to cultivate various protective forest belts and man-made oases in which arboreal trees, shrubs, grass and their botanic populations are planted in ensemble to form stretches, patches and networks.
For example, in the county of Qira, a dune-fixing system covering a 10,000-hectare wasteland was inaugurated in a comprehensive way. In the heartland of the scorching Turpan basin, a 533-hectare artificial oasis imposes a hindrance to prevent the shifting sand from running amok. At the southern fringe of the Taklimakan Desert, four counties of Qira, Minfeng, Yutian and Jiashi are rallied to tame the saline and arid wasteland covered by running dunes totaling about 46,600 hectares by planting the rose willow after repeated irrigation. The three projects were awarded by the State and the latter two were among the eight anti-desertification entries won a global award from UNEP.
Encouraging progresses attained in the region also include the rejuvenation of natural vegetation, the establishment of natural reserves for plants adaptable to arid climate and other hostile natural conditions, balanced supply and rational development of water resources, water-saving techniques, the introduction of artificial meadows, soil amelioration and upgrade of land productivity.
Another monumental landmark for the regional campaign is the construction and recent operation of the 219.1-km-long highway across the immensity of the Taklimakan Desert, the first long-distance artery for crude petroleum trans-shipment in the world.
