The Three-North Shelterbelt Program also known as the Green Great Wall, is a series of forests intended to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert.
Launched in the late 1970s, the idea as to create these forests with the aim of increasing northern China's forest cover from 5 to 15 percent. It is planned to be completed around 2050, forming a 4,500 km long forest shelterbelt. But where does the project stand now? Lets take Zhangbei area for instance, which is one of the closest parts of the shelterbelt to the capital.
Forests were planted, covering over 1.5 million hectares of land... But by 2013, over 93 percent of the forest was in a state of decline. Even worse, one-third of the forest is now dying or already dead due to the worsening ecosystem.
At the same time, we are seeing more frequent sandstorms in northern China. Only in the first four months of this year, 7 duststorms were recorded, including two reaching strong level. The one in mid-April was also the strongest sandstorm to hit Beijing in 13 years.
