What's China's answer sheet to desertification?

The Taklimakan Desert in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has been completely encircled with a sand-blocking green belt stretching 3,046 kilometers.

Dubbed the "Sea of Death," the desert covers 337,600 square kilometers and its circumference measures 3,046 kilometers, making it the largest desert in China and the second-largest drifting desert in the world.

It has taken more than 40 years to fully enclose the Taklimakan with a green belt. 

The Taklimakan Desert control project is a part of China's Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program (TSFP) launched in 1978, the world's largest afforestation program to tackle desertification.

With the TSFP and measures such as the Grain for Green Program, China has handed in its own answer sheet to desertification.

According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, over 35.8 million hectares of desertified land have been conserved, and over 7.8 million hectares of desertified land have been effectively rehabilitated. The forest coverage rate in the TSFP area has increased from 12.41 to 13.84 percent. Additionally, 61 percent of the soil erosion areas have been effectively controlled, and the "green line" of vegetation coverage in the Yellow River Basin has shifted 300 kilometers westward.

In the past 10 years, the frequency of severe dusty weather in spring in northern China has decreased significantly.

"In China, 53 percent of treatable desertified land has been effectively rehabilitated, with a net reduction of 65 million mu (over 4.3 million hectares) in desertified land," said Huang Caiyi, a National Forestry and Grassland Administration official.

"China has taken the global lead in achieving 'zero growth' in land degradation and a 'dual reduction' in desertification and desertified land," Cai added.