This article was taken from the March 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
There's a brand new man-made wonder in China -- but this time it consists of trees. More than a hundred billion of them are due to be planted by 2050, across an area equal to 42 per cent of the country's land mass, as part of the Green Great Wall forestation programme. The aim: to fend off the encroaching sands of the Gobi Desert, which engulf 3,600km2 of grassland every year and smother Beijing in dust storms. According to research by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it's already working. "Our results show that it greatly improved the vegetation index and effectively reduced dust storm intensity in northern China," wrote Minghong Tan, associate professor of geographical science at the academy in a December paper.
Since its inception in 1978 as the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme, the project has met controversy over its potential long-term disruption to the ecosystem. But with ten million km2 affected by desertification globally, and a similar project planned for the Sahara, we see a leafy trend rising.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
