Desert Economy: Memoir of a Tree-Planting Mission in Inner Mongolia 

Unthreatening grey clouds blanketed the sky as our caravan of 12 volunteers from NPO Green Life and Shanghai Roots and Shoots arrived in Kun Lun Qi. Two hours behind us was the Liaoning provincial capital of Shenyang, and ahead of us, surrounding an old Japanese bridge that marks the border of Inner Mongolia lay some of the most inhospitable geography in all China. After another two hours maneuvering around ancient potholes and shifting sand drifts our team of 12 volunteers from NPO Green Life and Shanghai Roots and Shoots arrived in Kun Lun Qi.
 
This town of 50,000 people dug-in on the edge of an expanding 800 square miles of desert is the site of a series of environmental initiatives embarked upon by a range of governmental and non-profit organizations. Kun Lun Qi was once surrounded by rich grasslands until Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” encouraged massive overcultivation which led to devastating and wide-spread soil degradation. Certainly one of the most impoverished areas in China, Kun Lun Qi has little to no electric heating in winter and has faced sporadic water shortages in recent summers. With the added stresses of global warming, the surrounding area has suffered 10 times the amount of sandstorms in the past 5 years, many reaching as far as Beijing. In the face of some of the harshest environmental challenges in China, the inhabitants of this area have adapted by creating a unique and sustainable economic infrastructure centered on tree planting.

Once nomads, the Mongol people have been forced to settle, and now for more than half a century tree planting has been a way of life in Inner Mongolia. Because a majority of local youth have left for the cities such as Shenyang in search of China’s new money, most of the workers are elderly and have been planting this land since they were teenagers. Some of the planters we encounter during our stay have complexions similar to the desert itself, calm worn faces, with eyes that reveal the many harsh politics of sandstorms and desert livelihood. The Chinese government allots each family a piece of the surrounding desert upon which they plant and care for their trees and crops. In twenty years time they request permission from the government to cut the trees down and sell them, thus providing money for their children while also combating desertification.
 
We arrived in this remote locale as welcome guests, hosted by top officials from the resident Youth League bureau because of a recent partnership between Roots and Shoots and NPO Green Life. The Jane Goodall Institute-Shanghai, Roots and Shoots, a foreign affiliated non-profit organization has agreed to team up for fund-raising and research purposes with NPO Green Life, a Japanese based operation that has worked for five years supplying free saplings for the people of Inner Mongolia. Roots and Shoots organized a large benefit concert in Shanghai on March 17th and raised 25,000RMB for the tree planting cause in Inner Mongolia. During our week in Kun Lun Qi we were treated to the best food, accommodations and transport the city has to offer, which left me wondering just how "guided" our experience was.
 
On one of our days out in the desert I am particularly struck by an elderly man whose face is dark and creased leaving him with an ageless quality of being. He sits on a dune under the hot sun silently smoking cigarettes and indifferently watching our hands blister and necks burn. He remains insulated from our intentions and contentment with our day of manual labour. He does not pretend to care about the quality of our life, or the satisfaction we feel serving our purpose. He simply sits, pleased with having a day off work, knowing that tomorrow when we leave he will still be here working for his family’s future as he has in years before.

 
The Jane Goodall Institute-Shanghai Roots and Shoots is continually trying to raise more funds and collect more supplies for the tree planting in Inner Mongolia. They are easily accessible via the internet or by phone (in Shanghai) www.jgi-shanghai.org. /86-21-63523580 Roots and Shoots gladly accepts donations of any sort and will be sure that it all goes to help plant trees and raise the standards of living for the people of Inner Mongolia.

-Jordan Small


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