After the severe spring sandstorms that raked Beijing in 2000, the threat posed by such violent gusts and increasing desertification became a hot topic. This March’s severe sandstorms further attracted people’s attention, from government leaders to the general public, not to mention the environmental experts.

　　Beijing’successful Olympics bid, improved living standards and growing environmental awareness have seen calls for action grow louder. Though the change in public attitudes has been relatively recent, environmental experts have been sounding the alarm bells for years. Academics, meteorological experts, environment protection activists and forestry department officials have been aware of the problem for decades and trying to solve it.

　　To cope with sandstorms, Chinese scientists have called for a thorough implementation of the central government's policy of returning poor farmland to pasture in China's western areas. They also called for planting trees to create an anti-storm forest barrier.

　　Keep dust at bay

　　"Continuing building a network of green belts is an important and effective way to keep the dust and sand north of Beijing from being blownsintosthe city," said Jia Baoquan from the China Forestry Research Institute. "But just building a defense is not enough. We should find and deal with the source of sand creating Beijing's dust fall in the air."

　　To restore the topsoil in the desertified region, the government has begun a special project, aimed at transforming a total of 458,000 square kilometres in 10 years. That will be done through building up green belts and strict control of livestock numbers, which will help recover vegetation and reforestation of spare farmland.

　　Shelter belts planted in northern, northwestern and northeastern China have been used in the fight against desertification since 1978. The scheme entered its fourth phase last year.

　　Measures and Suggestions

　　Large areas subject to severe sandstorms in the arid and semi-arid areas of northwest China are characterized by great economic losses and ecological disasters. This is the result of expanding desertification. Consequently, the priority task in controlling sandstorms should be to combat desertification. The following are some suggestions:

　　First, it is suggested that certain administrative methods be taken to turn desertification preventionsintosthe record to evaluate the work of local government officials.

　　Second, the issue of desertification prevention should be included in the national economic and social development program for the 21st century, and it should be on the list of key national projects and items of infrastructure construction.

　　Third, the prevention plans must be drawn up scientifically, and the management must be strict.

　　Desertification prevention is a systematic project. Enough attention, therefore, should be paid to ecological construction while harnessing desertified areas. Seriously desertified areas give rise to sandstorms. Measures should be taken to accelerate the speed of the planting of vegetation in areas without grass or tree coverage.

　　Fourth, importance should be attached to experts' participation in the project, and the building of a new type of structure which combines production, scientific research and promotion under the new circumstances. As desertification prevention is the project involving great difficulty and many aspects, it is suggested that scientific studies be pursued in combination with practical efforts, and 3-5 percent of the basic fund be abstracted from the development fund to support scientific studies and improve construction quality. At the same time, new technology, experiences and theories from abroad can be adapted to meet our own needs.

　　Fifth, we must do a good job of monitoring and forecasting desertification. We must also establish an information network for national desertification and sandstorm prevention, with forecasting work focused on controlling desertification at the beginning stage.

　　To curb and prevent the expansion of deserts, China has adopted a series of laws and regulations such as a draft law on desertification prevention and treatment, a program on the construction of desertification prevention and treatment projects in key areas, and a program on implementation of the UN Convention on Desertification Prevention.

　　Beijing

　　Beijing has also decided to speed up construction of more "green screens" to fend off sands coming from the northwest. This year, the Chinese capital plans to green 24,300 hectares of its land, say sources from the municipal landscaping committee.

　　Beijing is expected to bid farewell to sandstorms by 2010, thanks to a ten-year sand control program that aims to improve the ecological environment in north China. The program, designed for the 2001-2010 period, will benefit Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

　　Over 900,000 hectares of farmland in these regions will be turned backsintosforests and grassland and 6 million hectares of waste land will be covered with trees, said Zhou Shengxian, director of State Forestry Administration.

　　According to Zhou, the sand control efforts also include grassland preservation, water conservancy and water-saving irrigation projects that aim to recover and preserve vegetation and curb desertification in north China.

　　Zhou said the one-year tryout of the sand control program has yielded positive results in Beijing, as 200,000 hectares of trees have been planted and 20,000 hectares of farmland in the city's outskirts have turned backsintosforest or grassland.

　　The sand control program is one of the six major programs outlined by the State Forestry Administration. The other five involve forest preservation, turning of farm landsintosforestry and wildlife protection.

　　Hebei

　　North China's Hebei Province, bordering the Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, has decided to invest a huge sum of money to build three large forests belts sheltering the cities from sandstorms.

　　According to the provincial forest department, the province will spend a total of 200 million yuan (24 million U.S. dollars) in the next three years to build three 67,000-ha forests belts to the north of the two cities.

　　This will, together with the already existing shelter, form a 533,000-ha green shelter from winds and sands from Inner Mongolia and help water conservation efforts in the region.

　　The province's forest coverage rate is currently 19 percent and there are 2 million hectors of land left for forestations.

　　Inner Mongolia

　　The desert area of Inner Mongolia accounts for 60 percent of its total land area of 1.18 million square kilometers and the area that is becoming desert is still expanding by 660,000 hectares annually.

　　Eleven sandstorms hit the region in the first three months last year, which have badly affected the air quality of Beijing, Xi'an and other cities. The region has five deserts and five sandy areas, some of which are only 180 kilometers away from Beijing.

　　"The fast-rising population in Inner Mongolia enhances the pressure on the grassland ecology, which often leads to its rapid desertification," said Hu Dayuan, an environmental expert with the China Centre for Economic Research under Peking University

　　Moreover, the current effort to fight sandstorms through tree planting is not always effective and it is sometimes better to develop natural grassland, he added. Hu said that the support of the State Forestry Administration - the government body leading the fight against sandstorms - in the development of grassland was not enough.

　　In China, the forestry administration is mainly responsible for managing forests while grassland management comes under the sphere of the Ministry of Agriculture.

　　　"The focus on tree planting is partially caused by departmental interests," said Hu.

　　　However, according to Yang Shijie, deputy secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of China, the central government invested 1.6 billion yuan (US.7 million) in ecological rebuilding in the region last year, equal to the total amount for the previous 20 years. The region has made a timetable for beautifying itself: ecological deterioration will be initially curbed by 2005; great efforts in ecological construction will pay off by 2010; and by the mid-21st century, a new Inner Mongolia with a sound ecological system will emerge in north China.

　　Private funding

　　In recent years, the Chinese government has also worked out policies encouraging individuals and enterprises to participate in the harnessing of barren hills and deserts. Under the new policies, participants enjoy the preferential treatment of making their own profits and enjoying supporting funds and low-interest loans provided by the government.

　　"Abundant sunshine and heat resources, a pollution-free environment and cheap land are all favorable aspects of business in the desert," said Wang Minghai, adding, "It’s not easy to make money here. But you don't need to worry about going bankrupt, because turning the desert green will ensure success of growing plants and raising animals."

　　The involvement of enterprises in desert prevention and treatment, which has become popular in most parts of western China, is also bringing profit to local farmers and herdsmen.

　　Recently, asgroupsof private entrepreneurs in Inner Mongolia put forward a proposal calling on more people in non-governmental sectors to actively join the efforts to develop industries in the deserts, which, they say, is both beneficial to the country and the investors.

　　Sandstorm Becomes Global Issue: Experts

　　Sandstorms have become a global issue and preventing those calls for international cooperation, experts said in Beijing Friday, at the international seminar on environmental protection and aid-the-poor in northeast Asian countries.