I lived in the desert around Tucson, Arizona, and it is full of all kinds of cactus. It's against the law to kill or dig up any cactus because it's what keeps the soil in the ground. Maybe some of these places can try planting cactus to see if that would help.

Congrats to the uploader of this video - you've just earned yourself a new subscriber. This is easily one of the most fascinating documentaries I've ever seen. The topic of desertification is still very misunderstood, I think. I had no idea how quickly deserts could expand due to bad farming techniques. It was only until I recently learned about this and the real causes of the American Dust Bowl in the 1930s, that I truly began to appreciate humanity's impact on the landscape at such a grand scale. Please keep uploading documentaries like this! They are absolutely essential for teaching the public about these urgent ecological problems that we're facing today.

Wonderful. Great desitions and very on time. Glad that there are people, entities, and even government who cares. Lots of success. from Costa Rica

This video was very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Fascinating doc...thanks for that.

Thank you for your research about desertification, and thank you for a part 2!!👍

35:45 what a view, a regular looking city street ending in mountains of sand.

Excellent documentary, very educative and eye openers about the reality on this part of the world. Lot to learn and remember out of it.

These desert problem not caused by modern days, far before that. 10 years ago, Beijing would face sandy storm every spring, and these appearances were recorded since 1300s in Yuan dynasty and went through 700 years. But thanks for the Three North Forest Shelter Program, already planted more than 122 thousands km² forests since 1978. Sandy storm issue in Beijing is very rare now, but it remains a long long journey for that planting program in the far northwest places.

Great video!

My #1 favorite YT channel great job 👌👍

Really good documentary Thank you 🙏

The great green wall initiative is awesome. I watch the video about the Loess plateau. Regenerating landscapes is the most realistic and self sustaining thing we can do now.

VERY INTERESTING AND UNDERRATED VIDEO

The Taklimakan Desert used to be a giant volcano. The interesting thing about its shape, is that we see it in the weather satellite images, all over the place. The most interesting places we see it, is over Hawaii, and Yellowstone. Also the New Madrid area.

great documentary

Enjoyed

Good job man

I have never really followed these Stories about the deserts aso, but as someone who has been teaching pilot students about weather and the impact it has on Pilots wanting to make it a save fligt or landing, this video made me think about what the source there is that generates deserts. All what is said is right, beginning to plant what ever grows where you do it. What we learned becoming a pilot and learning about weatherconditions, is we know about the fact that hot air is climbing up because its lighter than cold air, and it pulls up air behind it , that is the birth of the wind. That means if we have hotter groundspots like dry sand or buildings or asphalt, this would heat up much faster than a football field or a forest, where there is a lot of Water is in the plants which cant't be heatet up that fast. If you fly a glider ths is what you want. But to prevent the big storms you do't want that, it is to find a way to cool hot aereas down so the temperture difference between two aereas is smaller. Not so many big storms would occur and we would have less deserts and more people find a save place to live and prosper. The solution you are mentioning ist growing plants to stop the wind, but they really do cool down the environment. which is good. If we would be able to find a way to cool down the places where the im pact of the sun (making it really hot ) ist strongest, winds would go slower and what Prof. Ries mentioned the size of the grain of the sand being transported would less big and less sand could be transported. (Ideal would be a real big white or silver tent which could reflect the sun rays.) I know this is not realistic but it shows the direction I'm aiming at.

very nicely covers the problem and solution. we can only hoping for best and contribute to the nature in any form.

This is very interesting and informative documentary.

a verry nice video, this people shows al the others taht the help them self and not waiting for help from outsiede, super and powerfull

The Taklamakan desert is not just a carbon sink from agricultural runoff but it is the source of dust particles for rainfall in the western U.S.A. see the article, The Dust Detective in High Country News. A similar grand cycle is with the Bodélé Depression in Chad that has its dust going to the Amazon.

Dawn in the dunes shots.... damn i am so jealous, thats a candy store for a photographer

Good planning nice.

very moving. i believe that this will be the key to fighting our future vegetation crisis world wide.

Good Documentary! @49:56 They peg it for for the US Central Valley and Mid-West. The Ogallala Aquifer. The Dust Bowl came to an end, but after perfection of drilling techniques and cheap oil the Agriculture Industry went right back to the same farming practices. For all practical purposes these areas in the US are now the use of petroleum to turn land into to food and it is coming to an end very soon. It is over for humans in my opinion, and in short order ~ Most likely in this Century! Thanks for putting this together!

Viktor Schauberger and Sepp Holzer already said how to reforestate deserts.

This is informative and well put together, but I can’t help but be distracted with the lack of cultural understanding revealed in the V/O writing with words like “peasants” and “poverty”. That lady had a ton of goats.

What a beautiful documentary !! Is a mixed bag , Good news and bad news.

All of this colossal collaboration between the governments and the people to combat natures power of wind and sand is so important to save our mother EARTH, PLEASE PLANT TREES where ever to save our planet Earth.

nice video

This is a chilling movie.

Subbed.

Another video showed the process of creating straw checkerboards, workers would take shovels and push straw into rows, forming 1 meter square grids, thousands and thousands, which stabilized the soil. Then planting could be put in the grids and take hold.

All that sand for glass and we use plastic.

Imagine major natural forests like the Amazon jungle turning into a desert due to deforestation exposing the soil. The Gobi, Sahara and Kalahari deserts were once lush green areas that were drained and today they are barren

How many cities over the centuries have just disappeared? Completely buried 100's of meters under sand. Mindf###!

Does anyone happen to know what variety of Acacia they are speaking about in 42:16?

I have been to this area. It is amazing to see. The edge is distinct and you can see where it is covering villages and farms like a snowstorm with a border. I did see a lot of planting and it shows progress. I wonder what one would find under the deserts of the world.

Aww a whole community working part-time making the the new green wall. Really cute. I almost want to move there.

It's a shame that scientists, engineers, and planners don't read the comments here. They'd find the answers to all our problems.

Greetings from Brasil 👏👋🇧🇷

*** Nice ***

Buying a plot of land over grazed and basically ruined. Having alot of the same problems land is eroding. Hope to green it that's why I'm buying it. We would like the land to hold water again like it used too. Any suggestions or videos anyone can post to help with this process?

Good documantry Chinese are very hard worker trees are life very very awesome video i like it back ground voice is 👌

22:39- “sunflower seeds, a traditional Chinese crop”- sunflowers, like maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, came from the americas, and sunflowers were first commercialized in Russia

Much respect...... tree planting is a must!!!

A truly beautiful documentary full of Hope. I heard a disturbing report on the American green walls planted after the dust bowl recently. Turns out many Farmers are looking for more profits and are cutting the wind break trees down to return the land to row crops. They do this when crops fail for tember profits and they do it when crops do well for extra commodity profits.

The World should be watching and learning.....it must!

Thumbs up for the great documentary!

Very interesting.... whole new respect for the Chinese people..👍 thanks for sharing 🤙🤙🇺🇸🇺🇸

This is really interesting and provides a different view of chinese culture. Thank you. Well done.

Several have mentioned 'use the sand for...', but you've got to understand, this 'ancient desert' has sand that cannot be used for construction purposes, and making glass from it (more than is already done) would put a MASSIVE burden on existing fuel supplies we have. When concrete is made (aggregate), the sand used in it must be 'rough', 'square'...have 'sharp faceted edges'. Sand in an old desert has rolled, tumbled, ground against itself for eons...to where it is polished. You cannot use 'rounded sand' for concrete production...and it is economically unfeasible to make 'glass containers' out in the middle of nowhere and have to ship them, possibly thousands of miles, to use them (for a one-use container). Environmentally, glass is GREAT as a container...but ecologically, you use a LOT MORE FUEL making glass, than you do making plastic...and you can make plastic on-site where it is needed...making it, believe-it-or-not, 'greener' to make locally from petroleum.

Truly, this is a great example of Garret Hardin's famous "Tragedy of the Commons". But one must admire the tough people of China who bravely soldier on, fighting against the desert!

Dear sir I was there in tashkurgan and kashgar and Urumqi by road in 1990 from Pakistan I love to see that time video if you have then kindly send me link may you have always success

might consider permaculture i dont think desert tourism make more revenue than the silkroad when it was booming xD

I think that may be a ufo at 34:08 on the right hand side of the screen.

without natural predators of the grazing animals, those grazing animals destroy the land and make them into deserts

Goats are extremely destructive for vegetation. They have been banned in some locales.

I was watching a video that was discussing the trials that are going on with various vegetables, in terms of their salt tolerance. They are finding that several kinds of vegetables are more salt tolerant than others, and certain strains of those are even better. They said that potatoes were the most salt tolerant of all. Some vegetables are not bothered by even being flooded with salt water. It is likely they are breeding certain plants to be more salt tolerant, so we can use ocean water for irrigation.

Unbelievable forestry experts..

35:19 What an iconic shot.

They transfer oil over thousands of miles different countries and the same pipeline. Why can they not do so with water. Governments have the ability to do it what is stopping them

To most of these Tourists from the newly rich East Coast and from South Korea, the desert is a mere fair ground, another item to tick off on the list of sheik holiday destinations, another story to tell back at the Office. to tell back at the office... *The Camels remain nonchalantly unimpressed*

The curse came when man began to till the soil and leave it naked rather than to dress (cover) the soil and keep it.

great episode....thx....deforestation with animal grazing has brought down many a culture

"building the Great Green Wall" -- here you see some of the benefits of the command economy.

respect these chinese efforts.

That is so awesome! Amazing results if it continues and becomes a constant balance between the use of those natural resources, mainly water and timber, and the restoration of them. They needed to start these projects hundreds of years of ago, hopefully it is not to late and Africa should take heed to China's example and start working on the Sahara :) Cheers to REFORESTATION!

I thought we were running out of sand for concrete. Why not use existing sand to create walls with mesh uprights to not only control the flow of sand, but to slow the wind passing over it. Export the sand for concrete elsewhere. I see a pack of hungry solutions to this problem.

Water vapour bearing winds obstructed by mountains can be baffled by carefully located wind turbines upwind, forcing them to rise higher and over the mountain!!!

At 7:09 the video shows flood irrigation. Drip irrigation, as pioneered by Israel, may increase efficiency.

I wish I could plant trees as easy as shown here in this video. All the stuff I have to do when planting a tree in the Southern California desert is a bit more of a choir than just digging a hole.

great video. But I laugh that as soon as the German academic says "these projects don't have forresters", the video immediately cuts to a Forrest Engineer and then a botanist.

warm weather and digging shallow holes in sand? sign me up!

Men and women working alongside one another, nice to see

This is nature's way of saying "It is karma". If earth dies so do we.

so sad ,in the Caribbean we do get a lot of Sahara sand ,which we never had before .Kudous to the chinese for their great efforts

Planting trees help bring more living creatures and good for human habitation to survive. These area have snow in cold time. Trees will help keep more moisture which the land needs to fight the moving sand.

Would boulders help while the trees and shrubs are yet to be planted? At least they hold soil underfoot. What about garbage? Could temporary landfills hold back the sands? What about barrels? I'm thinking large items spread across regions until the planting gets there. I wish I could assist, but I don't have the means, but plenty of time. Plus, for now, I'm afraid to visit China.

dang, these footages are over ten years old.

The language I hear sounds like Mandarin but every now and then I hear a foreign sound. CH as in chanuka.

where is part 2?????

@42:58 Alfalfa: A Spanish word of Arabic origin pronounced the same in either language including English.

Very interesting documentary and good on them i say... Planting trees is one thing but it wont bring back the glaciers that are needed to supply water to the region. Its an extremely expensive band aid. Fixing the symptom instead of the cause. If humankind find alternative energy sources and stop logging in the region and plant trees to halt the desertification we may never reverse the warming that has altered the amount of fresh water. No water = no trees :(

You can't get away from barking dogs no matter where on Earth you roam.

solar city with wind & 2 to 3 umoges batteries to be transported capture the morning dew

Wow

I Pray for Your Trees and Water Way's , , Listen to Mr.Lee . He is Wise :) QC

Especially if I'm wanting to use my Facebook for peace n talk to my friends n relatives n can't cos they're pestering my facebook

What if that's where Atlantis went, into the sand .or was that Babylon ? I dont know but their names could make any story sound true .so poetic and awesome

1:39 LOL, With shovels??!! It cannot be hard to make some sort of device that would ride over and clear t... Like a fkn snowplow? And some blowing air perheps

June 2019. This viceo is out of date. China's forests have increased dramaticaly since 2010.

If sand covers the road regularly, why not install large stakes along the way defining the edge of the way on both sides? It seems it would assist drivers and prevent accidents too

Need to plant millions of trees, solar panels power stations. All that sun going to waste

that dog tho

Notice all the groups have a least one or two uniformed in camp?

We don't own this Earth, we are merely guardians and caretakers, realising this is the only way there remains a future for all. Thank you China, Mongolia etc for showing us how, the work you do today benefits us all tomorrow. Even here in England things are changing, a day after rain and the soil is like dust again. Palm trees grow quite happily... Water, may be the cause of future wars. People fix problems when they unite, Governments create them. Excellent documentary, thank you.

the chinese gov't had a railway build to Lhasa. It took many years.