Just as the image of sandstorms was beginning to fade from people's memories, several hit north and northwest China this spring, engulfing major cities like Urumqi, Huhhot, Beijing and Jinan in dust clouds. The sandstorms sounded off alarm bells for the Chinese government.

In the spring of 2000, a total of 12 sandstorms swept across north and northwest China one after the other, necessitating a visit by the then Premier Zhu Rongji to Hebei and Inner Mongolia to inspect sand control work. That same year, a dust-storm sources treatment project was launched around Beijing and Tianjin. It was one of the country's six eco-construction programs.

The aim of the project, covering 75 counties, cities and prefectures in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, was to limit potential sources of sandstorms through grassland conservation, reforestation and/or rejuvenating cultivated land. About 20.8 billion yuan (US$2.51 billion) in funds was earmarked for Hebei alone.

Bashang in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, lies to the northwest of Beijing. The two cities are no more than 200 kilometers apart, but there is a difference of over 1,500 meters in elevation. Wasteland reclamation for farming over the last few decades has ravaged the area's natural vegetation and created vast desert-like areas. This has made Bashang a key dust source area that directly threatens the capital's ecological environment.

Despite this and some serious droughts in 2002 and 2003, sand control has made some headway in Bashang's Zhangbei, Kangbao and Shangyi counties.

"On the reforested land, dust is not raised even on windy days," said Kang Chengfu, vice director of Zhangjiakou Municipal Forestry Bureau. "Reforestation is therefore one way that sand can be completely controlled in another five or six years."

According to a door-to-door survey carried out in April in about a dozen villages in this region, most interviewees said they successfully reforested more than half of their cultivated land. Wang Zhen from Baichengzi Village in Zhangbei County said his village originally had 5,633 mu of cultivated land, of which 3,111 mu has so far been reforested or re-grassed (One mu = 0.067 hectare).

Records from the Zhangjiakou's Forestry Bureau show that since 2000, the city has reforested a total 6.63 million mu of cultivated land. As a result of which, total over-cultivated area has decreased from 10.5 million mu in 2000 to 7.3 million mu today.

In spite of these promising results, the project still faces certain challenges.

First, the government hasn't adequately compensated farmers for their losses, which has in turn killed their enthusiasm or willingness to reforest the cultivated land.

"Kangbao County has 1.2 million mu of cultivated land to be reforested, and by the end of last year, 888,000 mu had already been reforested," said Gao Ping, director of the county's Forestry Bureau.

Gao added that farmers have gained a lot from selling their grain in recent years. So, asking them to reforest their cultivated land is a challenge, particularly if the government is closefisted when reimbursing them for their losses: "They reforest two mu of arable land, and only one mu's loss is covered by the government."

Second, although the project was implemented five years ago in Zhangjiakou, follow-up funding has not been provided.

"Shangyi County's forest acreage has reached over 1 million mu," said Qiao Mei, director of the county's Forestry Bureau. "Nonetheless, the government has almost no manpower or financial investment to tend young forests, control the spread of plant diseases, control pests, and prevent forest fires."

Gong Shujing, vice director of Zhangbei County's Forestry Bureau, said that due to the shortage of funds, tending to forests has become an arduous task. "Neither grass-roots forestry stations nor forest rangers have been established or employed, which adds greatly to the difficulty of the forestry sector's work in protecting forest resources according to law," he said.

Third, reforestation is threatening Bashang's natural pastural landscape.

Bashang, at an altitude of 1,486 meters above sea level, lies in the adjoining region between the North China Plain and the Inner Mongolia Plateau and is the source of the Luanhe and Chaobai rivers. From time immemorial, it has been known for its vast expanse of grassland, the nearest prairie land to Beijing.

Unfortunately, due to the over-reclamation of wasteland, the prairie in Bashang is being depleted at a mean rate of 7,000 hectares per year, with its total area shrinking from 860,000 hectares in the 1950s to 510,000 hectares today, according to a source with the Hebei Provincial Forestry Bureau.

This has made the ecological environment in Bashang extremely fragile and increasingly unable to withstand the onslaught of escalating duststorms.

It has also given rise to a tricky situation. According to a forestry official from Zhangjiakou who asked not to be named, they have had to prioritize now between protecting the endangered grasslands and preventing the local ecological environment from deteriorating even further. The latter option has won out for now.

Yet another challenge that faces forestry officials is the fact that the soil in the grasslands is not entirely suitable for growing trees. So, although planting trees in Bashang might be a quick-fix, it is by no means a permanent measure to curb sandstorms, said Gao Juan from the Water Resources Ministry's Department of Water Resources.

(China.org.cn by Shao Da, June 5, 2005)