A sandstorm has been blowing through China's vast northern expanse since late last week.

From Friday to yesterday, the storm extended its influence across 11 provinces in the north, covering an area of at least 1.2 million square kilometers and 70 million people.

Though economic losses caused by the storm are not yet known, the consequences are disastrous.

Apart from the obvious inconvenience to people's lives and the damage to their health, the sandstorm impacted profoundly on agricultural production. It is the right time of year to plant spring wheat and fruit trees.

It wreaked the most havoc in the Xilingol League (prefecture) in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which was still reeling in the wake of an earthquake. The wind destroyed 80 percent of the 1,500 tents that were being used as emergency shelter, leaving about 10,000 people homeless again.

The sandstorm is the latest warning from nature. The storms, which have been getting bigger and more frequent, are evolving into an increasingly serious natural disaster that affects our lives and even threatens the very survival of our species.

Although, according to experts, sandstorms are created by a number of factors, it is the desertification that makes it possible for dust to drift and float throughout the air. Our irrational and aggressive use of the land is a major factor accelerating desertification.

Excessive farming and grazing, plus the excessive removal of trees and reclaiming land, is to blame.

Statistics show that today, some 170 million hectares of land have been eroded in China, affecting about 400 million people.

Fortunately, China is at last alarmed about the ever serious warnings being thrown at it by nature. Initial efforts are being taken, such as the farmland-for-forestry and farmland-for-pasture program, which is being promoted nationwide.

But it is impossible to repair the damage over night. More worrying is that so far, a destructive production mode is still being used.

At a press conference held last week to mark the publication of China's 2003 environmental report, Zhu Guangyao, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, acknowledged that the country's environment was in a precarious situation.

Although more money and resources are being sunk into environmental protection, ecological degradation is occurring at an accelerated rate.

The steps taken so far are obviously not enough.

In a plan approved last year by the State Council, China vowed to improve its forestry coverage rate to 19 percent by 2010 from the current 16.5 percent, while treating some 22 million hectares of desertified land. If that can be achieved, the soil erosion in major rivers should be basically under control.

By 2020, the forestry coverage should be 23 percent of the country's area.

The ambitious plan portrays a brighter tomorrow. But its realization depends on a clearer understanding of the current grave situation by governments at all levels, so they no longer pursue short-term economic gains at the expense of our future.

(China Daily March 30, 2004)