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In Asia, drylands cover approximately half of the continent (45 million km2), with China being the most affected by aridity, with approximately 6.6 million km2 of drylands that support 580 million people.
These drylands are also affected by desertification and remain at risk of expansion owing to increasing aridity.
Desertification is the process by which land turns into a desert. This in turn has increased the number of dust storms across the worlds drylands, particularly in China.
These dust storms can cause havoc to neighboring cities, causing accidents in resulting in fatalities. Dust storms also have knock on negative effective effects for rural farming communities, such as economic loss due to loss of topsoil and loss of organic matter causing decreased crop yields, Migration of population in affected areas and drifting sand can also affect infrastructure and increase desertification, leading to the abandonment of farmland.
Dust storms also have an ecological impact such as loss of biodiversity in terms of wildlife, plants, and ecosystems. The storms can also impact inland lakes and ground water as well as increase salinity of the soil and much of the continent is at risk, since China has many deserts, covering 27% of the country's land area.
However a miracle is taking place in one of Chinas deserts, called the Babusha Desert located within the vast Tengger Desert. Here an unbelievable effort has taken place, this man-made desert was entirely barren 40 years ago with expanding sand dunes as a result of drought and over cropping.
And now it has totally been transformed, almost all of the desert has turned into a green forest, helping to reduce sandstorms in recent decades.
This unbelievable effort covers an area of 2800 hectares or nearly 250 square kilometers. which used to be completely devoid of trees and now has become a green oasis with over 40 million trees planted across the desert.
A further 7000 hectares of farmland has been protected, with a green corridor now established to prevent further spread of sand, protecting the railways, roads, farmlands and the villagers' homes.
This remarkable restoration story is a perfect example of how it can be possible to bring life back to barren land and it would not of been possible if it wasn't for the heroic work of a group of ordinary farmers, known affectionately as ‘the six old men’. These men spent 38 years of their life regreening the desert and it doesn't stop there, they have passed on the work through the generations.
This transformation was no easy feat, due to the tough weather conditions, storms, shifting sand and other difficulties such as the hard working conditions, inconvenient transportation and inadequate funds.
In the first year of hard work 70% of the saplings got buried by moving dunes. After more trial and error, the six men found a smart way to keep the trees alive.
