Every spring, for as long as the residents of Beijing and
neighboring Tianjin can remember, the two cities have been scraped
raw by sandstorms sweeping down from the north. Vast areas of
northern China have become deserts and winds sweeping down from
Russia pick up the sand particles and deposit them on city streets,
and the people in them. That, at least has been the conventional
theory for the annual gritty misery.
But, the China Youth Daily recently published a letter
jointly signed by some scientists putting forward a new idea about
the origin of the storms. According to their analysis, they are
dust, not sand, storms and dried up lakes near the cities are the
root of the trouble. This new idea, and the possible need to change
the way the problem is being tackled, has drawn nationwide
attention, so reporters from the newspaper interviewed Liu Tuo,
director of the Office of the State Forestry Administration.
"The experts' style of exploring a new way of sand control
deserves commendation, and their suggestion plays an important role
in wind and sand source control," said Liu. However, he felt the
research was far from complete and dried-up lakes could not yet be
considered the root of the trouble.
"Currently, wind and sand sources are being controlled
comprehensively. The overall plan of sand control has been formed
through many years of exploration and widely expounded by numerous
experts that has stood the test of time," Liu said.
The wind and sand source control project in Beijing and Tianjin
started trial operation in June 2000 and was carried out
comprehensively last year, becoming one of the country's top six
forestry projects. (The other five projects involve protecting
natural forests; building a 20-million-hectare "shelter" belt of
trees in northwest, north and northeast China and the middle and
lower reaches of the Yangtze River; converting farmland to forest
and grassland in the vast, but ecologically fragile western China;
wildlife protection; and construction of nature reserves and forest
industry bases)
.
Through various kinds of biological and engineering measures,
the project is aimed at controlling desertification and reducing
the damage caused by sandstorms. It is expected to take 10 years to
finally improve the ecological environment in the areas surrounding
Beijing and Tianjin.
The engineering construction covers Beijing, Tianjin,
Hebei
and Shanxi
provinces and Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. The planned forest will have an
area of 110 million mu (1 hectare equals 15 mu).
Some 160 million mu of grasslands will be replanted and
more than 85 million mu protected.
Liu held that wind and sand in Beijing and Tianjin mainly
originate from neighboring farming and stockbreeding crossing
areas, over-cultivated areas, degenerating grasslands, deserts and
river valleys. The river valleys include dried-up lakes. However,
dried-up lakes are only one aspect, and not the main contributory
factor. Currently, to control the wind and sand, some measures are
adopted including reforesting cultivated land, improving grasslands
and harnessing small rivers. Only this kind of overall distribution
and comprehensive harnessing can gradually restore the ecological
environment in these areas, and thus lessen and prevent the dusty
spring weather in Beijing and Tianjin.
"The problem of dried-up lakes around Beijing and Tianjin is not
very obvious," said Liu. In addition, dried-up lakes are being
harnessed comprehensively. For example, the previous dried-up Juyan
Lake in the Alashan area has been refilled with water and its
nearby ecology is recovering.
Han Tonglin, a researcher from the
Chinese Academy of
Geological Sciences, is one of the scientists who put forward
the idea that dried-up lakes were primarily to blame. "We put
forward the idea through on-the-spot investigation and studies, and
from the angle of geology, so the idea is indisputable," he
insisted. Maybe desertification was the main problem in some
localities, he conceded, but for Beijing and Tianjin, dried-up
lakes are the main source of trouble. Degenerating grasslands can
be restored through years without any grazing; however, it is very
difficult to reverse the deterioration of dried-up lakes.
"We hope related experts can join the discussion of the idea,"
said Han. "We are organizing experts to discuss the harnessing of
dried-up lakes, and a preliminary plan has been made. We hope
Beijing won't suffer from dust storms by 2008 through effective
control measures."
(China.org.cn translated by Li Jingrong October 16, 2003)
