China Relocates Herdsmen for Desert Control

Wang Yi'an can not remember exactly when his family began living in the desert, but he knows well that all the people on the oasis in the Tengger desert will settle down elsewhere.

Wang's family has lived in the desert for many generations in the desert in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. But soon he and other families will leave their desert homes to settle down in irrigation areas in neighboring Inner Mongolia, north China.

To protect rare oasis resources, curb the spreading of the desert and restore more grassland and forest land, the Chinese government has decided to relocate desert residents to other places with better living conditions.

Wang's family lives in the Jagat Village, a small piece of oasis in the Tenggar Desert. Wang has built eight adobe rooms on the border of this small oasis, and makes a living grazing camels.

"There are about 8,000 people who live inside the desert and nearby places," said Chang Peifu, deputy head of the Tongguzhuor Township, adding that "they rely mainly on grazing in the rare oasises and planting crops."

Their horses, sheep, cows and camels eat a lot of sand plants, and planting crops consumes a large portion of underground water resources. "Such a living has seriously damaged the ecological environment of oasises in the desert," Chang said.

China has suffered a lot from the advancing desertification in recent years. The desertification has been cited as one of the major factors leading to 12 sand storms which hit northwest, north and even east China this spring.

The Chinese Government has decided to take firm steps to check the moving of the yellow sand. A large scale desert-control project, consisting of 11 sub-programs, is being carried out in more than 400 counties in the west of northeast China, the north China and 14 provinces and autonomous regions in northwest China.

China will inject 12 billion yuan in desert control this year. Large-scale man-planting and aerial-planting of trees and grass is being carried out in the desertified areas of the country.

The Tenggar Desert has been moving eastward rapidly in recent years and Tongguzhjuor Township, which was on the border of the desert several years ago, now stands inside the desert dozens of kilometers away from its boundary.

However, the area of sand plants has been enlarged in the desert thanks to the efforts of aerial-planting over the past several years.

"The situation could be better, if all the desert residents move away," said Chang. "It is also for the benefit of local herdsmen and farmers."

Chang said, desert residents live in bad conditions, have little access to cultural life and entertainment and also have difficulty seeing doctors and sending their children to school.

"If a man is seriously ill, he might die before reaching the doctor," Chang said. "I have a 17-year-old daughter who has never gone to school because there is no school near my home."

Granny Pan Congying, who has lived in the desert for 63 years, said that "It's time to leave this place." She recalled that when she was young, there was dense forest of sand plants, but now, her homeland has turned into a "sea of sand".

The younger generation of the desert families are even more longing for life outside the desert, though they have also bought TV sets, motorcycles and installed telephones. Now, no one wants to marry into the desert.

The Wang's and other residents of the Tenggar Desert will settle down in the Alax League in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where they can irrigate farmland with water diverted from the Yellow River. Some of them are working in the service sector like running restaurants and transporting goods.

Though only less than 10 percent of the 890 people in Tongguzhuor Township have moved to their new homes, yet the remaining are expected to leave the desert within four years, Chang said.



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