Human activity turns China into desert
ABC Online 29/01/2002
China has raised the environmental alarm bell after a survey found almost a third of its
land mass is now desert, with much of this caused by human activity.
Desertification has affected 28 per cent of China's land mass, with 18 per cent of the
country turning waste through the effects of overgrazing, deforestation and other ravages,
the China Daily reports.
The report follows another survey last week which showed soil erosion affected 37 per cent
of China's landmass.
Much of the degradation continued along China's Yellow River "the cradle of Chinese
civilisation", while an increasingly muddy Yangtze reflected growing environmental
destruction along the world's third longest river.
Desertification was affecting 2.6 million square kilometres of China by the end of 1999,
up by 52,000 square kilometres since the first survey in 1994, the newspaper said, citing
a State Forest Administration survey.
According to the report, 1.74 million square kilometres of desert were created by
"human activity", while climate variation and natural phenomenon were blamed for
the expansion of deserts.
"Most dry lands in China have been degraded by over-cultivation, overgrazing,
deforestation and poor irrigation practices."
Regions where desertification was most severe included the northern Yellow River region
around Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, as well as the
headwaters of the Yangtze in Qinghai province, to the northwest.
Major desertification also occurred in the westernmost Xinjiang region and in Tibet, as
well as the northern province of Hebei near Beijing.
Last week a survey by the Ministry of Water Resources found soil erosion was also
affecting 3.67 million square kilometres of China's land mass, with most of the areas hit
mainly in the Yangtze River valley.
Soil erosion in the Yangtze basin, which includes the primarily southwestern provinces of
Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hebei and the Chongqing municipality, was creeping across from
east to west.
Chinese environmentalists have long expressed concerns that soil erosion that carved away
the famous Loess Plateau along the Yellow River was well underway along the Yangtze.
Despite a series of measures to tackle the problem, the survey said the area affected by
soil erosion nationwide was down only around 110,000 square kilometres since a 1990
survey, reflecting the enormity of the problem.
Vice minister of water resources Chen Lei says it is a problem that will not be fixed for
many years to come.
"It will take nearly half a century for China to control the eroded land and
rehabilitate their damaged ecosystems in accordance with China's present erosion-control
capabilities."
END OF
REPORT
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