Over four decades, China has quietly pulled off one of the largest ecological restoration projects in human history. The Three-North Shelter Forest Programme — known as the “Great Green Wall” — has helped lift China’s total forest coverage from less than 10% in 1949 C.E. to nearly a quarter of the country’s total land area today, slowing the advance of the Gobi Desert and protecting millions of people who farm its edges.
At a glance
- Great Green Wall: China’s Three-North Shelter Forest Programme spans roughly 1,800 miles across the country’s arid north and northwest, forming one of the longest human-planted forest systems on Earth.
- Forest coverage: Total tree cover has risen from under 10% in 1949 C.E. to nearly 24% today, with China targeting 24.1% coverage by 2025 C.E.
- Desertification reversal: Scientists have documented measurable reductions in sandstorm frequency and intensity in northern China, with farmers like the Wang family in Gansu reporting that crops grow taller and sand drifts have been stopped in their tracks.
What the project actually looks like on the ground
In the dunes near the village of Hongshui in Gansu province, 78-year-old farmer Wang Tianchang and his family have been planting trees and bushes since they settled on barren land in 1980 C.E. What was once open desert is now ringed with rhubarb patches, rows of pines, and blue spruces. Their four acres of farmland are shielded on one side by a forest planted roughly a decade ago.
The Wangs plant a flowering bush called sweetvetch, known locally as “huabang,” which has an 80% survival rate even in harsh desert conditions. They press the shrubs into evenly spaced squares across dune slopes — a technique locals call “holding down the sand” — to stop soil from drifting into nearby fields. Wang’s son, Wang Yinji, now leads much of the work while his father recovers from illness.
“The more the forest expands, the more it eats into the sands, the better it is for us,” Wang Yinji told Reuters. He credits post-1999 C.E. state-led reforestation acceleration with a visible improvement in conditions: corn grows taller, and the sand that once blew in from the east and northeast has been stopped.
Decades of science, mobilization, and local knowledge
The scale of this effort is difficult to overstate. China has mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers each planting season, combining state infrastructure with the intimate knowledge of farmers who have lived in these landscapes for generations.
Experts note that China’s approach has grown more sophisticated over time. Early campaigns sometimes planted the wrong species for local conditions, but the government has drawn on decades of field experience to refine which trees and shrubs actually survive. The sweetvetch favored by the Wang family is one example — a species selected specifically for its resilience in extreme aridity.
Ma Lichao, China country director for the Forest Stewardship Council, a nonprofit promoting sustainable forest management, emphasized that the communities doing this work have adapted to harsh conditions over generations — but that climate change is introducing pressures that have no historical precedent. “It is very important to say that climate change is something very new,” he said.
Why this matters beyond China’s borders
China’s reforestation push is part of a global reckoning with land degradation. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification estimates that roughly 40% of the world’s land is degraded, affecting billions of people. China’s program — however imperfect — offers one of the most data-rich case studies the world has on what large-scale ecological restoration can and cannot achieve.
The lessons are being watched carefully in Africa, where the African Union’s own Great Green Wall initiative aims to restore 100 million hectares across the Sahel by 2030 C.E., drawing explicit inspiration from China’s model. Meanwhile, researchers at institutions including Peking University have published findings in peer-reviewed journals documenting both the program’s successes and its ecological tradeoffs.
The honest picture: real gains, real limits
The project’s achievements are real, but so are its complications. Heavy sandstorms still hit Beijing — in March 2021 C.E., the worst in six years coated the capital in dust, a reminder that tree planting alone cannot fully offset warming temperatures and shrinking water supplies.
Conservation biologist Hua Fangyuan of Peking University has documented relatively low tree survival rates in some regions, along with concerns about depleted underground water tables from irrigation-intensive planting. Some artificial monoculture plantations have been created at the expense of natural forest. In 2019 C.E., local authorities in Inner Mongolia were accused of seizing farmland to meet Beijing’s forest coverage targets — a sign of how top-down target pressure can distort outcomes on the ground.
China says it is gradually shifting toward a more nature-based reforestation approach that prioritizes ecosystem health over raw coverage numbers. Whether that shift comes fast enough to keep pace with climate change is an open question — and one the rest of the world has a stake in answering.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Reuters Wide Image
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- U.K. cancer death rates fall to their lowest level on record
- Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- The Good News for Humankind archive on China
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