«Эту битву можно выиграть»: эксперт по пустыне рассказывает, как технологии, финансирование и стратегии Китая помогают амбициозному экологическому проекту

Около двух десятилетий назад африканские страны запустили смелый план: 7700-километровую «Великую зеленую стену», чтобы сдержать продвижение пустыни Сахара на юг. Тем не менее, шли годы, и прогресс застопорился из-за нехватки финансирования, политической нестабильности и отсутствия масштабируемых решений. 

Китай, который в настоящее время обладает передовыми возможностями в области экологической инженерии, вступил в борьбу.

На семинаре в Пекине Лэй Цзяцян, ведущий эксперт по опустыниванию из Синьцзянского института экологии и географии при Китайской академии наук, раскрыл закулисную роль Китая в борьбе Африки с опустыниванием.

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Его замечания предложили редкий и подробный взгляд на то, как китайские технологии, финансирование и стратегический прагматизм меняют один из самых амбициозных экологических проектов в мире, и почему Пекин рассматривает это как дипломатическую и экономическую возможность.

Сахель, полузасушливый пояс, протянувшийся от Сенегала до Джибути, долгое время был эпицентром антропогенной катастрофы, вызванной климатом. Десятилетия засухи, обезлесения и чрезмерного выпаса скота превратили обширные участки в бесплодные пустоши, вынудив миллионы людей покинуть свои дома и подпитывая циклы нищеты и конфликтов. 

The African Union's Great Green Wall initiative was launched in 2007 and aimed to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs.

Yet by 2020, around just 4 per cent of the target had been met, according to Lei.

The challenges were immense: erratic rainfall, impoverished soil and populations growing faster than the land could sustain, Lei said in a video released by the academy on March 3.

"But China's experience shows this battle can be won," he said.

For decades, China has waged its own war against deserts and installed its own green wall, a national effort to guard against the encroachment of the desert.

Its "Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Programme" - a 4,480km (2,800-mile) network of forests and shrubs planted since the 1970s - has stabilised vast areas of the Gobi Desert, reduced sandstorms choking Beijing, and has been touted as lifting millions out of poverty through ecotourism and agriculture. 

Last year alone, China completed 6.67 million hectares (16.5 million acres) of greening projects, according to data released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Wednesday, which was also China's Arbour Day.

China's national forest coverage rate now exceeds a quarter of the land area, with forest stock surpassing 20 billion cubic metres, according to official government sources. Grassland vegetation coverage remains above half.

"China is now the fastest and largest contributor to global greening efforts," Zhang Liming, director of the administration's ecological protection and restoration department, told state media on Wednesday.

Natural Resources Minister Guan Zhiou said on Tuesday that China's war on desertification was being fought under a unified coordination mechanism overseen by the central government.

Ministries, local governments, state-owned enterprises and private companies have been working together to combat desertification, rehabilitating more than 50,600 sq km of land over the past few decades. 

Substantial progress has been made in large-scale campaigns. In northeastern China, for instance, the Horqin Sandy Lands are gradually being restored to savannah. In the central key battle zones, major projects - including the 400km "photovoltaic Great Wall" in the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia and comprehensive management of the "10 major kongdui" (critical erosion-control systems) - are advancing steadily, according to Guan.

China had "fastened a green scarf around the Taklamakan Desert", laying a foundation for systematic ecological governance, Guan said.

"The contrast between blue photovoltaic panels and golden desert is spectacular," he added.

 

Тем

Now, Beijing is exporting this model, pairing ecological restoration with economic incentives, to Africa, according to Lei.

In Mauritania, where sand dunes bury highways and sap 15 per cent of GDP annually, Chinese scientists introduced a "tiny but mighty" innovation: checkerboard straw grids, a technique perfected in the Taklamakan Desert. These grids, combined with drought-resistant shrubs such as saxaul and acacia, have stabilised shifting sands near Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott. 

In Ethiopia, Chinese teams cleared invasive thorny bushes choking grasslands, reviving pastures and tripling fodder yields through rotational grazing.

"China's approach is pragmatic: blend ecology with livelihoods," said Lei while showing satellite images of restored plots.

Chinese scientists and engineers were not just planting trees in Africa - "we are creating green industries", Lei said.

Some critics have cautioned that China's motives are not purely altruistic. The Sahel sits atop mineral riches and aligns with Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative ambitions.

Yet Lei argued that China could be the only country capable of doing this work. China has launched the world's largest afforestation project at home and it has honed solutions for extreme environments - from drip irrigation using brackish water to desert highway greenbelts.

"China's desert-control tech is as much craved [by African countries] as our high-speed rail and space programme," Lei said. 

Still, challenges loom. Climate change is intensifying droughts, and scaling up requires more trust and support from local governments.

For Beijing, the Sahara project is a strategic soft-power win. By tackling a crisis that fuels migration and extremism, China is positioning itself as a responsible global player - and is gaining a foothold in a resource-rich region.

But for Lei and his colleagues, the mission is also personal.

While showing photos of grass seeds from China that were once detained by wary Ethiopian customs officers suspecting invasive species, he said: "These seeds needed visas that are more difficult to obtain than those for [humans] ... now they're healing the land."

South China Morning Post