Once a barren wasteland, the Taklamakan Desert in Northwestern China is undergoing a remarkable transformation. With the planting of 66 billion trees (no fakenews) around its edges since 1978, the Taklamakan Desert, once considered a “biological void” due to its severe arid conditions with more than 95% of the land covered in shifting sands, is now becoming a thriving carbon sink.
This groundbreaking shift, highlighted in a recent study published by researchers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States, demonstrates how human efforts are reversing desertification and combating climate change with China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Program, also known as the Great Green Wall.