In the deserts of northern China, workers spent 50 years sticking small sticks into the sand in neat rows. The sticks hold the sand in place so young trees can grow. This simple method, called straw checkerboards, has become the face of one of the biggest planting projects on Earth.
The effort is called the Three-North Protective Forest Program, but most people know it as the "Green Great Wall." It started in 1978 and has involved millions of workers walking across dunes, building these small grids, and planting saplings where water can reach them.
The results speak for themselves. Desertified land in northern China has been shrinking by more than 1,000 square kilometers (about 400 square miles) every year since 2000. That's an area larger than New York City reclaimed from sand each year. Forests planted by the program now cover a total of 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 square miles) — roughly the size of Spain.
"The broad significance of the Three-North Program is not only the scale of restoration, but the long-term political commitment behind it," said Barron Joseph Orr, chief scientist for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. He said reversing desertification is possible when countries stick with it for decades.
Scientists say the gains are real. Forest cover in the program area jumped from about 5% in 1978 to 14% in 2022. Areas with the worst desert damage have shrunk by more than 40%. One researcher, Zhu Jiaojun from the Institute of Applied Ecology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, credits both hard work and a bit of good luck — some regions have seen more rain in recent years, making it easier for plants to survive.
But the fight isn't over. Scientists warn that keeping these lands green will require decades more effort. Without continued care, the sand could return.
Yin Yuzhen, now 60 years old, has worked as a sand-control worker in Inner Mongolia for decades. She remembers how lonely it was in the early days. Forty years ago, she said, the sand blew so thickly that it was hard to see even a short distance. There were no birds, no animals — just wind and dust. "But now we can see the sun. We can see the green," she said.
The Green Great Wall shows that when people commit to fighting environmental damage over many years, real change is possible — even in places where survival once seemed impossible.