A villager plants trees to try and keep the sand from shifting in the Hobq Desert in Inner Mongolia, China. Desertification in parts of northern China has accelerated in recent years.
More than 90% of China's 160 million acres (400 million hectares) of grasslands
are classified as "degraded," slowly losing the diverse collection of native
plants that normally flourish there and fueling the massive dust storms that
blow across China every spring. Nomadic herders have raised camels, goats, cows,
and sheep on these grasslands for hundreds of years, but in the middle of the
20th century, China's population boom and demand for more meat sent livestock
numbers soaring. By 1990, some regions were literally grazed bare, herders whose
animals were dying off descended into poverty, and grasslands that used to
harbor hundreds of plant species had turned to wasteland.
No comments:
Post a Comment