Among the 10 are the Beijing Institute of Environmental Protection Science and the Plant Institute affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to the ministry, the organizations will be responsible for developing anti-desertification technologies and methods for application in Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

According to Deng Nan, vice-minister of science and technology, severe sandstorms have been a rarity in north China throughout most of the past 50 years; however, this has changed in recent years. North China was pelted with mixtures of wind and sand 12 times this past spring.

According to the ministry, the sandstorms are coming from rapidly expanding deserts in China’s northeastern areas.

In August, the ministry invited domestic enterprises and research institutes to help work out a way to stop the process of desertification and put an end to the sandstorms.

The ministry finally selected the group of 10 organizations and Deng called on them to develop methods of fighting desertification that would also benefit the rural economy, such as turning the afforestation process into a regional industry that would employ farmers.

In its science and technology plan for the 10th Five-Year Plan Period (2001-05), the ministry has described anti-desertification as one of its most important tasks, Deng explained.

The ministry plans to organize relevant governmental departments to increase green coverage in northwest parts of the country, such as Qinghai and Gansu provinces, Ningxia Hui and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions, according to the ministry’s Department for Rural and Social Development.

According to statistics, 51 percent of the land in these regions is desert, accounting for 57 percent of the country’s total.

(China Daily 11/28/2000)