China Strives To Combat Desertification For Sustainable Development

WUWEI,CHINA - MARCH 28: (CHINA OUT) The view of planted trees in desert are seen from an aircraft on March 28th, 2019 in Wuwei, Gansu Province. China. In order to prevent desertification from affecting the development of cities, grass-checkered sand barriers are laid here to prevent wind and fix sand, and the Saxaul is planted which is a very strong plant in existence. The trees being planted are part of “Ant Forest,” a green initiative on the Alipay app designed to encourage individual users to live a greener lifestyle and participate in environmental protection that began in August 2016. Ant Forest users are rewarded ‘green energy’ points by living a low carbon emission lifestyle such as paying utility bills online and cycling instead of driving to work. These green energy points can then be converted to a physical tree planted by Ant Financial Services Group, the operator of Alipay—the world's most-used app outside of social apps, together with its philanthropy partners. Alibaba's Ant Financial has provided financial support for tree planting for the past three years. And an article published in “Nature”on February 11, 2019 shows that "The world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago". Data from NASA Earth satellites shows that human activity in China and India dominate this greening of the planet, recent satellite data (2000–2017) reveal a greening pattern that is strikingly prominent in China and India and overlaps with croplands world-wide. China alone accounts for 25% of the global net increase in leaf area with only 6.6% of global vegetated area. The greening in China is from forests (42%) and croplands (32%), but in India is mostly from croplands (82%) with minor contribution from forests (4.4%). China is engineering ambitious programmes to conserve and expand forests with the goal of mitigating land degradation, air pollution and climate change. (Photo by Wang HE/Getty Images)