Posted on 7-8-2003
China's
Future - Sand
by Alan Marston
Government officials in China are admitting its deserts are
growing and are now seven times as big as Britain.
The official Xinhua
news agency says nearly 20% of the country is now desert. Scientists
say industrial growth over the last 20 years is to blame. The
State Forestry Administration admits the problem will continue
to get worse until 2010.
The news agency says the nearest sand dune is now less than
100 miles from Beijing and getting closer.
Xinhua said: "Nearly 20% of China's land territory has
turned to desert because of natural and human factors, and overall
desertification keeps on worsening, according to the national
forestry authority." Zhou Shengxian, director of the State
Forestry Administration said: "The overall situation of
desertification is still worsening in China, even though in
some areas it has been under control." He added: "China
aims to control the expansion of desert land by the year 2010,
and to establish a shelter ecosystem in desert areas by 2050."
Anti-desertification projects include the building of a forest
belt around deserts and a tree-planting campaign, known as the
Great Green Wall which is meant to shelter Beijing from sandstorms.
Postscript: Two years after this article, the situation is much
worse. All countries that have bought into unrestrained industrialism
have punished the earth beyond its ability to repair itself.
China is the biggest country in the world in terms of population,
the environmental costs of its no-holds-barred money fever will
be correspondingly the biggest the world has ever seen, too
big to contain within human-made paper borders.
The global economy has arrived, with its shadow.
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