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China’s Great Green Wall is a vision of hope for the planet
Chinese socialist planning and action over decades have created the world’s greatest reforestation programme, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ, and now its lessons in fighting desertification and climate change are taking root worldwide
Taklimakan desert workers

IN 1978, China launched its Three North Shelter Forest (Green Great Wall) Programme, aimed at creating a forest chain extending from Xinjiang in the far north-west to Heilongjiang in the far north-east, to prevent further expansion of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts. This multi-generational project is scheduled for completion in 2050.

According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the programme “has greatly increased the forest coverage and effectively combated desertification in the programme area, improved the overall situation of serious wind-sand hazards and soil erosion, enhanced the resilience and adaptability to natural disasters and climate change.”

Further, “thanks to the development of forest and fruit-related industries, tens of millions of local people have been pulled out of poverty.”

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