The growth of China's highest sandy area, Qaidam Basin in
Qinghai Province, has been at least temporarily halted with the
planted area increasing by 2.7 percent year-on-year.
Statistics from the provincial forestry bureau show the total
afforested area has reached 9.8 million mu (653,000 ha),
thanks to 2.28 million mu (152,000 ha) of afforestation
projects carried out during the country's Tenth Five-Year Plan
Period (2001-2005).
Sands cover nearly 34,900 square kilometers, one third of the
basin in the northwest part of Qinghai, and encircle the
6,000-meter high Qilian and Kunlun Mountains.
Li Wen, an official with the forestry bureau, told Xinhua on
Wednesday that the afforestation projects have slowed down
desertification.
"Sandy areas are not the same as deserts. They are caused by
irrational development of grasslands and can be reversed," he said,
adding that early success in an unirrigated afforestation research
project gave desert control workers hope for the basin.
The basin has an average elevation of 3,200 meters and is rich
in salt, oil, and natural gas, but its elevation and dry climate
have meant sparse vegetation and serious desertification and made
it difficult to get access to these resources.
Local forestry personnel began a 3.73-million-yuan (US$483,000)
pilot project five years ago to improve sandy areas, and have added
nearly 250 ha of forests in the form of 187 forest belts, and
brought more than 17,000 ha of sandy areas under control.
Scientists have also started a 156-ha experimental center using
unirrigated and deep-sowing methods that have resulted in a forest
survival rate of more than 80 percent.
They say that dry afforestation techniques will make large-scale
desertification-control and soil improvement projects possible.
(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2007)
