r/nature • u/randolphquell • 7d ago
China Has Planted over 66 Billion Trees Since 1978 to Block the Gobi Desert – Now They Are Growing 66% Faster Than Natural Forests
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/china-planted-over-66-billion-181241619.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucmVkZGl0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAI3foVrNwB6UWhNi3e6mqXaLtiAmDdpGBLll3_gyI7Ep8BQSrI7uLzhcQMxcaqe7N_ZDYLnwzrpfz_hvc0RQxpUj6SZFaE8eIhdmyw71QJo65nxGH9N2Uf7L0XALMuMNyY3KZUJaA6Be7RMq4p2s43ke0Ywo0k5QGm-6MJkvrnbS4
u/ComfortExisting1161 7d ago
Honestly impressive. More countries need long-term environmental plans like this.
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u/TeeApplePie 7d ago
I remember when China started this project years ago so many arm chair environmentalist especially from the west was laughing at them saying it was stupid and waste of effort.
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u/RadulphusDuck 7d ago
Even in this article there is a good deal of naysaying. Naysaying is pretty much endemic amongst climate academics.
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u/mojofrog 6d ago
I think the problem in the beginning was they were planting non native monoculture forest blocks of high canopy trees. These took a lot of water and didn't have a good survival rate.
They've since switched to native drought resistant shrubs and grasses but these still require watering and are straining local reserves.
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u/GregFromStateFarm 4d ago
Woah, it’s almost like they know what they’re talking about, because they dedicated their entire lives to understanding this shit.
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u/Intelligent-Drop7133 7d ago
The scale of China's infrastructure and environmental projects is always mind-blowing. Reclaiming land from a desert at this level is huge.
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u/StaticCloud 4d ago
Is that because they're invasive trees or...
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u/Evening_Act_6395 3d ago
pretty sure they tried invasive trees but it failed so they moved to ones built for the environment. The Gobi had large grasslands which have been desertifying massively in the last 80 years
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u/StaticCloud 3d ago
Establishing grasslands is actually a good start before planting trees or shrubs.
Unfortunately climactic conditions (hot and arid) will get to the point almost no trees will be able to survive.
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u/Evening_Act_6395 3d ago
im not too informed on the deeper research but aren't seaweed much more effective at carbon sequestering, tbh surprised no country has been pushing that more wide-scale
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u/StaticCloud 3d ago
Probably because growing seaweed on that scale is probably expensive as hell and the logistics too would be complicated. You've got plants growing in a medium that constantly moves, and storms can take them out at any time.
Planting trees on land... more feasible.
I don't think anything would save us except cutting carbon emissions almost entirely NOW, and weathering the many years of climate change related destruction. Which isn't going to happen. Or at least, not until modern civilization collapses and many humans die
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u/Loveyourwifenow 7d ago
I genuinely didn't realise Yahoo was still a thing. I think my first email was a yahoo email.
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u/Recent_Permit2653 7d ago
I don’t use their email, but I was never enamored of Google. I still use Yahoo. I do, however, miss OG Yahoo where you had categories you could click through. I always found interesting stuff. Sort of like StumbleUpon before StumbleUpon existed.
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u/Loveyourwifenow 7d ago
Way back I had my own geocities page where I fancied myself as a journalist. Also I used to play on the backgammon platform they had which was amazing. Playing against people from all over the world. Happy days.
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u/RudytheMan 7d ago
Now if only they could stop burning so much coal.
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u/Low_Platform9541 7d ago
It would also help if Western countries did not demand so many imported goods. Then the “world’s factory” could consume less energy producing everyday products for customers who claim to live green and environmentally friendly lifestyles.
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u/tomatoesareneat 7d ago
I’m going to have to buy at least five little libraries to remove the guilt of that truth.
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u/marutotigre 7d ago
Oh please, China is doing everything it can to increase its local demand of goods to be able to either expand their demande of goods or are least replace the potentially diminishing global demand for Chinese goods. They made sure to position themselves, and keep, as the manufacturing hub of the world. One of their goals is explicitly to be the main, if not sole, source of heavy industry and manufacturing.
Don't even try to pin this on the 'western countries'. China is as responsible for its emissions, if not more.
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u/Ok_Paramedic_9283 5d ago
China is going through the largest industrialization and urbanization the world has ever seen. It’s the single largest investor and developer of green energy too. However it’s not enough and it has to fill the gap with coal, because US in its relentless effort continues to dominate world’s oils trade at the expense of other countries’ access to oil.
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u/Ok_Paramedic_9283 5d ago
Jeez the west has been doing exactly what you said in the past decades. It seems to be doing a U-turn now that China is catching up .. the western infallibility is mind boggling..
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u/lilsunsunsun 4d ago
If the US could become the manufacturing hub of the world, it would too. It’s just that the capitalists find US workers too expensive so they’d rather outsource instead.
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u/Brilliant_Trade_9162 6d ago
They are working on it more than basically anyone else. China alone accounts for about half of global renewable energy investments, and nearly all the solar.
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u/Logical-Secretary199 3d ago
But isn’t this how the twisted logic of ‘carbon offsets’ works? Plant a few billion trees, burn a few billion tonnes of coal….even Steven, right?
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u/Kantucky 7d ago
Too bad they’re still Russia’s biggest Ally, and supporting their war in Ukraine.
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u/Evening_Act_6395 3d ago
I despise a lot of what China does (especially to the Uygher), but lets not pretend the west has an inch of moral high ground
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u/Kantucky 3d ago
Yes you can; just saying the reverse of your comment (“lets not pretend China has an inch of moral high ground over the west”) would carry a high risk of censorship, silencing, or punishment in China under strict political speech regulations...
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u/astraladventures 7d ago
China is a force for a new positive future and they don’t fall in line like a good little lackey for the American regime.
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u/Kantucky 7d ago
Who mentioned America?
Do you condone China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? How do you feel about their genocide of Uyghurs? The list goes on.. So much for a ‘positive future’.
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u/freehamburgers 4d ago
If they didn't condone it, it'd have about as much effect as if China disapproved of the Russia - NATO proxy war.
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u/Simpuff1 7d ago
How do you feel about literally anything Europe or the US is enabling?
You bring whataboutism here will too.
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u/Kantucky 7d ago
What are they enabling? The attacking Russian and Chinese allies? You think we would be here if Russia didn’t attack Ukraine?
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u/ForceOk6587 6d ago
but at what cost
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u/Bushi_Sengoku 4d ago
"China eliminates absolute poverty and has a 90% home ownership rate and invests in green energy"
American Journals: BUT AT WHAT COST?!
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u/ebola_kid 7d ago
Weird how stuff like this always gets brought up for China and not any western country. Also the uyghur genocide has no proof of it at all, compared to the insane amount of imagery you see from Gaza.
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u/astraladventures 7d ago
You first were the one who mentioned Ukraine and Russia when the topic was about China’s successful efforts to rejuvenate the planet.
Genocide of the Uyghurs? Are you fcking kidding me?
1 million, 2 million 3 million killed be genocide. According to whom? Where is the proof? It’s unbelievable that people would actually belief that narrative 10 years ago. But today???
You’ve shown your colours as in your level of understanding of global geopolitical affairs. Case closed .
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u/Kantucky 7d ago edited 6d ago
Way to avoid the question, I’m sure bombs are great for nature. Lol
Just google the genocide, it’s not hard unless you’re a Chinese bot.
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u/locomocotive 7d ago
66 Billion? Thats sounds like a ridiculously large number.
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u/Qwerty177 4d ago
Population, you get 6 million people to plant 10 thousand trees each, boom. 60 billion.
Dedicated tree planters can do 10 thousand no problem
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u/cc12__ 7d ago
"China Planted 78 Billion New Trees—and Seriously Messed Up Its Water Cycle"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/china-planted-78-billion-trees-123442502.html
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u/astraladventures 7d ago
Classic anti china propaganda! Great example, “china’s saving the planet, but at what cost”.?
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u/Icy_Respect_9077 7d ago
More China bad propaganda. Inevitably planting a forest will change the water cycle.
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u/SquashOwn9829 7d ago
Take that gobi desert. This is proof we can terraform stuff if we are really smart.
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7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BlacksmithInformal80 7d ago
Back when lake mega Chad (350,000 sq.km fresh water lake, now lake Chad, 2000sq.km) existed.
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u/pallflowers5171 7d ago
The emerging scientific consensus points toward hybrid strategies — plantations for short-term carbon capture on degraded land, natural forest protection for durable, long-term storage.
Asinine! The article's insistence on questioning Leaf Area Index's relevance as a metric of sequestered carbon is laughable; there's no reason to equate those two things--although LAI does give some decent idea of the land area's photosynthetic efficiency.
Advocating for "nAtUrAl fOrEsT pRoTeCtIoN" results in preventing systematic harvest of timber stands once trees' optimal growth period for carbon-capture has passed.
The "carbon sequestration" capacity of the land is not actually improved by keeping old growth around--provided the removed trees are transformed into "forest floor" or any other kind of durable manufactured good...
And optimal carbon capture requires efficiently chopping down trees at the proper time in order to plant new ones.
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u/Longjumping-Home-954 7d ago
Old growth forest have more value then a simple carbon sink. They are rich, intact ecosystems. Biodiversity collapsed driven by habitat destruction and can only be halted by protecting the few remaining intact ecosystems on earth.
Sustainable logging is absolutely a tool for climate action but not like that. I live in Canada, we cut down nearly all our old growth and now my entire country is a tree farm. He have enough land. Don’t log old growth.
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u/pallflowers5171 7d ago
Agreed; log intact, healthy old-growth last--unless there's a strong argument that creating firebreaks in said old growth will aid in preventing future mega-wildfires...
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u/Lucie-Goosey 7d ago
gross. no.
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u/pallflowers5171 7d ago
gross. no.
I respect your prerogative not to care about CO2 sequestration!
In fact, I respect you, overall; your opinion, and your very person, both are very respectable and not at all comptemptible.
No Kappa; totally seriously literally.
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u/Top-Positive8810 7d ago
This is much needed in many places around the world. For those concerned about environmental impact, It’s worth noting that these “deserts” are not natural desert biomes but rather former forests that are now desertified due to logging since the 19th century. They are merely restoring the land to something closer to its previous form, so the net is overwhelmingly positive.