Green Great Wall may crumble

Part of the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, the world's largest shelterbelt forest that covers a huge part of the north of China, is in danger. A portion of the forest, measured at six square kilometers, has been illegally rented to a businessman to cultivate apple trees, reported the China Business Herald Wednesday.

Wang Ze, a businessman from Shanxi Province, reportedly signed the contract to rent the land in the village of Dawujia, Chifeng, with Cui Guoyu, stet director of the village committee.

The 4,480-kilometer-long belt of forest, dubbed the "green Great Wall" and initiated in 1978, spans the country's driest areas and is intended to fight against desertification and soil erosion.

The businessman's plan to transform the land, on which the little leaf pea shrub has been planted for some two decades, to a field of apple trees, triggered an outcry among villagers.

"Since many of the plants have been destroyed, the sands have come back to wreak havoc in recent years. Our 20-year effort to control the desertification has been in vain," Yin Fenglin, a villager leading the fight against the deal, told the Global Times Wednesday, calculating that actually far more than seven square kilometers of such land has been leased to grow cash crops.

Liu Bing, director of the Three-North program of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), told the Global Times that they will send officials from the regional forestry department Thursday to investigate but he refused to provide further details.

Yin said the deal was made between Cui Guoyu and the businessman on their own.

"Cui orchestrated the whole deal and took money from Wang Ze, who is said to have some backdoor connection with the autonomous region's government," Yin said, adding that even the court in Aohan Banner, the administrative area containing the village, refused to take the case.

"When we went to the Chifeng Forestry Bureau for help, officials there told us the deal is fully legitimate," said Yin.

Calls from the Global Times to the forestry bureau went unanswered as of late Wednesday, as did calls to Cui Guoyu. Zhao Shenyang, Party secretary of the village committee, hung up the phone immediately.

Zhuang Jiayao, an associate professor from the Nanjing Forestry University, told the Global Times that the belt is for public welfare and no one has the right to cut it down without permission from the provincial government.

"Its use for other purposes also requires legal procedures," Zhuang added.

Tang Xiaoping, vice dean with the Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning of SFA, told the Global Times that the belt needs to upgrade its plant species as its sand-controlling ability declines. "But the deal is illegitimate since it has been changed to make profits."