Northwest China Region Drives Sheep off Ecologically Sensitive Mountains
More than 10,000 sheep and goats have been driven off from a nature reserve in the Helan Mountains of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China. This step was taken to protect local ecological balance from over-grazing. The mountainous area, which is renowned as a land of ideal sheep farms for a long time, has suffered serious erosion.
The 148,000-hectare nature reserve in the Helan Mountains has more than 860 species of wildlife, including black stork and four other rare species under the first-class and red deer, blue sheep and 20 other wildlife species under the second-class national protection.
This year, the local government is planning to seal off an additional 67,000 hectares of mountainous area in the region for afforestation over the next eight years, and plans to restore and further improve the ecological system of the Helan Mountains in five years.
More than 10,000 sheep and goats have been driven off from a nature reserve in the Helan Mountains of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China. This step was taken to protect local ecological balance from over-grazing. The mountainous area, which is renowned as a land of ideal sheep farms for a long time, has suffered serious erosion.
