Enormous government project nearly 50 years in the making encircles desert with trees: 'The Great Green Wall'

Everyone knows the Great Wall of China, but likely far fewer have heard of China's "Great Green Wall," which recently hit a major milestone after more than four decades of tree-planting.

In November, workers in the northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang completed a roughly 2,000-mile "green belt" around the Taklimakan Desert, Reuters reported, citing state-run media.

The Taklimakan, nicknamed the "Sea of Death," is China's largest desert. The work to enclose it is part of the larger Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, also known as China's Great Green Wall. This broader project that launched in 1978 represents one of the world's most extensive planting campaigns.

China's swath of planted forest is ultimately projected to span 13 provinces, encompassing more than 1.5 million square miles and 42% of the nation's land area by 2050, per a government website. Program goals include shielding China from sandstorms blowing in from the north and stopping advancing deserts such as in Xinjiang.

At the Taklimakan section's completion, more than 116,000 square miles of trees have been planted, according to Reuters, helping increase China's forest coverage from around 10% in 1949 to more than 25% in 2023. In Xinjiang, forest coverage has grown from 1% to 5% in 40 years, Reuters reported.

Not to be confused with another ambitious Great Green Wall in Africa, China's overall program has already "achieved remarkable success in terms of improving ecological stability and supporting the local communities," according to the government.

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Farmers in the arid north have reaped benefits, as Reuters reported in 2021. Per the outlet, countering desertification has become increasingly important as the planet warms and affects water supplies.

"After 1999, when the tree-planting sped up, things got much better," Wang Yinji, a farmer in northwest Gansu province, said in the 2021 Reuters report. "Our corn grew taller. The sand that used to blow in from the east and northeast was stopped."

Over the years, the program has become better able to mobilize workers and volunteers, Reuters observed. It has also experimented to find the plants best suited to desert conditions.

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Some critics have noted that the program hasn't prevented sandstorms in Beijing. Others, cited by Reuters, have critiqued low survival rates of planted trees, as well as the program's competition with agriculture for water and land.

Some experts think the wall has only limited use against the onslaught of planetary warming and extreme weather. Ma Lichao, the Forest Stewardship Council's China country director, said that sandstorms hitting Beijing did not mean planting trees had failed but "showed it would no longer be enough to offset the impact of climate change," as Reuters summarized.

Other ways to address Earth's overheating include taking direct local actions, advocating for government solutions, and switching to energy sources that don't release heat-trapping gases. Yet many still feel there's a place for planting trees.

"The completion of the Taklimakan Desert control project is not an end to desert control but a new beginning," Jiang Donghui, an official in Xinjiang, said in translation in a government news video. "We will continue to expand the green belt … to ensure sustainable development [through] desert control."