Great Green Wall (China)

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The Great Green Wall, officially known as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program (simplified Chinese: 三北防护林; traditional Chinese: 三北防護林; pinyin: Sānběi Fánghùlín), also known as the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, is a series of human-planted windbreaking forest strips (shelterbelts) in China, designed to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert,^[1] and provide timber to the local population.^[2] The program started in 1978, and is planned to be completed around 2050,^[3] at which point it will be 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi) long.

The project's name indicates that it is to be carried out in all three of the northern regions: the North, the Northeast and the Northwest.^[4] This project has historical precedents dating back to before the Common Era. However, in premodern periods, government sponsored afforestation projects along the historical frontier regions were mostly for military fortification.^[5]

China has seen 3,600 km² (1,400 sq mi) of grassland overtaken every year by the Gobi Desert.^[6] Each year, dust storms blow off as much as 2,000 km² (800 sq mi) of topsoil, and the storms are increasing in severity each year. These storms also have serious agricultural effects for other nearby countries, such as Japan, North Korea, and South Korea.^[7] The Green Wall project was begun in 1978, with the proposed result of raising northern China's forest cover from 5 to 15 percent,^[8] thereby reducing desertification.

Yin Yuzhen planted trees to rehabilitate the desolate environment in the Uxin Banner of China's semi-arid western landscape. Yin's afforestation efforts have been recognized by individuals such as Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping, who, during the 2020 National People's Congress, described the actions of those such as Yin as a remarkable achievement and an overall improvement of the ecology in China.^[9]

As of 2009, China's planted forest covered more than 500,000 square kilometers (increasing tree cover from 12% to 18%) – the largest artificial forest in the world.^[10] In 2008, winter storms destroyed 10% of the new forest stock, causing the World Bank to advise China to focus more on quality rather than quantity in its stock species.^[10]

According to Foreign Affairs, Three-North Shelter Forest Program successfully transitioned the economic model in the Gobi desert region from harmful farming agriculture to ecological-friendly tourism, fruit business, and forestry.^[11]

In 2018, United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found the increase in forest coverage observed by satellites is consistent with the Chinese government data.^[12] According to Shixiong Cao, an ecologist at Beijing Forestry University, the Chinese government recognized the water shortages problem in arid regions and changed the approach to plant vegetation with lower water requirements.^[12] Zhang Jianlong, head of the forestry department, told the media that the goal was to sustain the health of vegetation and choose suitable plant species and irrigation techniques.^[12]

According to BBC News report in 2020, tree plantation programs resulted in significant carbon dioxide absorption and helped mitigate climate change. And the benefit of tree planting was underestimated by previous research.^[13]

Three-North Shelter Forest Program also reversed the desertification of the Gobi desert, which grew 10,000 square kilometers per year in the 1980s, but was shrinking by more than 2,000 square kilometers per year in 2022.^[14]

Hong Jiang, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, worried trees could soak up large amounts of groundwater, which would be extremely problematic for arid regions like northern China.^[15] Dee Williams, a US Department of Interior anthropologist, pointed to China's past failures in anti-desertification efforts and suggested that planting trees is a temporary fix that could not change behavior.^[15]

In December 2003, American futurist Alex Steffen on his website Worldchanging strongly criticized the Green Wall project. He claimed China wasn't using collaborative effort and information platforms to support the local effort. China's increasing levels of pollution have also weakened the soil, causing it to be unusable in many areas.^[6]

Research of reforested areas of the Loess Plateau has found that the combination of exotic tree species and high-density planting could worsen water shortages. The forests increase the loss of soil moisture content when compared to farmland.^[16]

Furthermore, planting blocks of fast-growing trees reduces the biodiversity of forested areas, creating areas unsuitable for plants and animals normally found in forests. "China plants more trees than the rest of the world combined", says John MacKinnon, the head of the EU-China Biodiversity Programme. "But the trouble is they tend to be monoculture plantations. They are not places where birds want to live." The lack of diversity also makes the trees more susceptible to disease, as in 2000, when one billion poplar trees in Ningxia were lost to a single disease, setting back 20 years of planting efforts.^[17] China's forest scientists argued that monoculture tree plantations are more effective at absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide than slow-growth forests,^[10] so while diversity may be lower, the trees purportedly help to offset China's carbon emissions.

Liu Tuo, head of the desertification control office in the state forestry administration, believed that there are huge gaps in the country's efforts to reclaim the land that has become desert.^[18] In 2011, there was around 1.73 million km² of land that had become desert in China, of which 530,000 km² was treatable. But at the present rate of treating 1,717 km² per year, it would take 300 years to reclaim the land that has become desert.^[19]

• Buffer strip
• Deforestation and climate change
• Energy-efficient landscaping
• Great Green Wall (Africa)
• Great Plains Shelterbelt, 1930s–40s, US
• Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1940s–50s, Soviet Union
• List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions
• Macro-engineering
• Mu Us Desert, a desert affected by the Great Green Wall
• Sand fence
• Seawater greenhouse

• China's Great Green Wall
• China's forest shelter project dubbed "green Great Wall"
• Grassland ecology to curb sandstorms
• Taming the Yellow Dragon – The Korea Herald