The price of the 'Great Green Wall', China's ecological bet

Dorj, a Mongolian herder, misses the time when his animals grazed freely on the vast steppes surrounding a dune desert in northern China.

His flock, reduced to about twenty sheep, is now confined to a pen around his brick house near the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia.

These plots of land are “too small,” laments the shepherd in his 60s, standing in front of an abandoned yurt, the traditional tent of the Central Asian steppes.

The ban on free grazing is one of the key measures of a colossal project launched in 1978 by China called the 'Great Green Wall'.

The plan aimed to create a belt of vegetation to contain the advance of deserts and reduce sandstorms that reached Beijing.

Since then, its objectives have evolved and also include the conversion of arid areas into arable land.

The Asian giant is now promoting it as a showcase for its environmental policy. In September, at the UN, its president, Xi Jinping, announced the expansion of forest cover as part of its commitments to combat climate change.

In and around the Kubuqi Desert, planting the equivalent of 840,000 football fields of trees and vegetation has created tens of thousands of agricultural jobs and reduced poverty, a UN agency celebrated in 2015.

– “Mountains of gold” –

West of Kubuqi, Bai Lei, a Han farmer – the majority in China – plants tubers.

Your company is one of dozens that have followed government guidelines to cultivate this ingredient, prized in Chinese medicine for its tonic effects, in this county.

“Here, everything was just desert,” she explains proudly, pointing to a 300-hectare area covered in corn and sunflowers.

Around their fields, huge billboards display a slogan from Xi Jinping: “Clear waters and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver.”

But these transformations have had an impact on the traditional lifestyle of Mongolian herders, an ethnic group that represents approximately 17% of the population in this region.

To protect the saplings, the government drastically restricted grazing areas and sent patrols to the region to ensure compliance with these rules.

– Protests –

The project "forced herders off their lands and disrupted sustainable practices that had maintained the fragile balance of the steppes for millennia," Enghebatu Togochog, a Mongolian activist exiled in the United States, told AFP.

According to him, nomadism completely disappeared from the Inner Mongolia region ten years ago.

In 2017, Chinese researchers acknowledged in a paper that herders' responsibility for desertification may have been overestimated compared to factors such as coal mining, intensive agriculture, or climate change.

For Enghebatu, this reforestation drive "in fact aims to completely transform the Mongolian landscape," including its social aspects. "The only true beneficiaries are the Chinese state and companies," he asserts.

The ban provoked demonstrations by pastors and clashes that on some occasions led to arrests, according to different NGOs.

During this report, unmarked cars followed AFP journalists, and men claiming to be local officials attempted to interrupt the interviews. Many interviewees refused to identify themselves.

– Head held high –

Neither the Elion Resources Group, which leads the Kubuqi reforestation program, nor local authorities in Ordos responded to AFP.

The impact on traditional lifestyles isn't the only objection to the 'Great Green Wall.' There are also scientific articles that lament the selection of non-native plant varieties or those that require a lot of water, in addition to the limited diversity.

"A plant that consumes a lot of water can deplete the water table and cause further degradation," says doctoral student Zhang Yanping, who collects samples from poplar and pine trees planted in the area more than ten years ago and which appear fragile.

Wang Shuai, a university geographer in Beijing, also highlights "the important ecological functions" of deserts, "such as water and biodiversity conservation." Rather than making them disappear, it would be necessary to prevent their expansion, he states.

Standing in front of a plot of land in Kubuqi, Mr. Feng rejects criticism of the program. A former farmer, this Han man now rents ATVs to tourists.

"Resources are more abundant and our lives are more prosperous," he said. "We have been able to hold our heads high, with pride."

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