The Great Green Wall, officially called the Three-North Shelter Forest Program (Simplified Chinese: 三北防护林; Traditional Chinese: 三北防護林; Pinyin: Sānběi Fánghùlín), is a series of human-planted windbreak forests in China. These forests are designed to stop the Gobi Desert from spreading and to provide wood for local people. The program began in 1978 and is expected to finish around 2050. At that time, it will have created a large green barrier covering about 4,828 kilometers (3,000 miles) long and up to 1,448 kilometers (900 miles) wide in some areas. This project will include about 88 million acres of forests.
The project’s name shows it covers three northern regions of China: the North, the Northeast, and the Northwest. This project has a long history, with earlier efforts dating back before the Common Era. However, in ancient times, tree-planting projects near the edges of China’s borders were mainly used to help protect military areas.
China has the largest desert area of any country and is greatly affected by sandstorms. To address this, the country has taken steps to restore grasslands and forests. These efforts have slowed and even reversed desertification. In November 2024, the Chinese government announced the completion of a 3,000-kilometer green belt around the Taklamakan Desert. The percentage of China’s land covered by deserts decreased from 27.2% in the previous decade to 26.8%.
Most of the Great Green Wall project started in northern China. It is a large reforestation project meant to stop desertification and reduce the effects of climate change. The project began in the 1970s in response to the Gobi Desert’s spread. The Chinese government led the effort, which included planting large numbers of trees to stop desertification and protect local communities and farmland. In the 2000s, the government started the "Three-North Shelterbelt Program" to build a green barrier against desertification, dust storms, and environmental harm. Over time, this effort became the large-scale environmental project now known as the Great Green Wall.
Desertification from the Gobi desert
Desertification occurs when human or natural activities change wet areas into dry desert conditions. This is a growing problem in modern China. By the year 2000, 29.7% of China was desertified, and the rate of change increased each year. In 2003, Worldchanging reported that the Gobi Desert was taking over 3,600 km (1,400 sq mi) of Chinese grassland each year. In 2001, National Geographic found that dust storms removed up to 2,000 km (800 sq mi) of topsoil annually, and these storms became more severe over time. These storms harm agriculture in nearby countries like Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. The main cause of desertification is human activity, including overuse of water, mining, farming too much, and cutting down trees. In 2022, Time reported that efforts to stop desertification had helped stabilize parts of the desert, and sandstorms affecting Beijing decreased by one-fifth between 2009 and 2014.
In 2017, National Geographic noted that certain policies had reduced China’s forests and grasslands. For example, the "grain first" policy required converting grasslands into farmland, which removed a natural barrier against desertification. Many of these problems are linked to population growth, as more people live in areas that cannot support them. A 2019 study in Nature Sustainability found that while human activity caused land degradation, recent policies helped increase vegetated land in China.
Over the past 40 years, the world has lost one-third of its arable land due to desertification. In China, increasing desertification and storms have damaged crops and buildings, forcing people to leave their homes. These people are now called "climate refugees." Desertification has affected over 400 million people. To fight this, China started the Green Wall project in 1978. The goal was to increase northern China’s forest cover from 5% to 15%, which would help reduce desertification.
Individual efforts
Yin Yuzhen planted trees to help improve the barren environment in the Uxin Banner of China's partly dry area in western China. Her tree planting efforts were praised by people like Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping, who, during the 2020 National People's Congress, called her actions a great achievement and said they helped improve the environment in China.
Sand-plus-solar anti-desertification
China is building more solar farms in its desert areas, such as the Kubuqi Desert, to help stop land from becoming too dry and sandy. This plan is part of China's renewable energy goals from 2021 to 2025. China is promoting a method called "sand-plus-solar anti-desertification" on a large scale, which started in Beijing around 2023. Solar farms in deserts help increase China's use of renewable energy and also help keep the land stable. The shade from the solar panels lessens the sun's strong effect on the soil, making it easier for plants to grow. In some places, grass has started growing under the panels. This helps reduce soil erosion and supports the local ecosystem.
Solar panels have been shown to slow down wind near the ground, which helps stop sand dunes from moving and reduces dust that harms the environment. This can improve air quality and create better conditions for plants to grow, helping to restore land that has become desert-like. Especially, liquorice plants have been found to work well in the shaded areas under solar panels. These plants take nitrogen from the air, add organic material to the soil, and slowly make the soil more fertile. Over time, this improves the land quality, allowing more types of crops, like tomatoes and melons, to grow.
More advanced solar farms in Chinese deserts use solar panels that are raised high, allowing for high-tech farming underneath, often in greenhouses with irrigation. This method combines producing renewable energy with farming, helping to restore the environment and grow food. However, challenges like sand collecting on the panels and the high cost of moving energy from remote areas still exist. Despite this, studies using satellite images show that solar projects have helped make some desert areas in China greener in recent years.
Results and successes
In 2008, winter storms damaged 10% of the new trees, leading the World Bank to advise China to prioritize the quality of trees planted over the number of trees. By 2009, China had planted forests covering over 500,000 square kilometers, increasing tree cover from 12% to 18%—the largest artificial forest in the world.
According to Foreign Affairs, the Three-North Shelter Forest Program changed the economic model in the Gobi Desert region from harmful farming to more environmentally friendly activities like tourism, fruit farming, and forestry.
In 2018, the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that satellite data showing increased forest coverage matched information from the Chinese government. Shixiong Cao, an ecologist at Beijing Forestry University, explained that the Chinese government recognized water shortages in dry areas and began planting trees that need less water. Zhang Jianlong, head of the forestry department, stated the goal was to keep plants healthy by choosing suitable species and irrigation methods.
A 2019 NASA Earth Observatory report showed that satellite data from 2000 to 2017 indicated China played a major role in global greening efforts. This was due to large-scale tree planting and farming practices. NASA's MODIS data suggested China was responsible for about 25% of the world's increased greenery, with 42% of this growth coming from efforts to protect and expand forests to reduce soil erosion and climate change effects.
A 2020 BBC News report stated that tree planting programs helped absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, reducing climate change impacts. Previous studies had not fully recognized the benefits of tree planting. The Three-North Shelter Forest Program also helped reduce desertification in the Gobi Desert, which expanded by 10,000 square kilometers yearly in the 1980s but was shrinking by more than 2,000 square kilometers yearly by 2022.
In November 2024, China's government reported that after 46 years of work, it had completed a 3,000-kilometer green belt around the Taklamakan Desert. Forest coverage in China increased from 10% of the country's land in 1949 to 25% in 2024, with the green belt project contributing to this progress. Although desert coverage remained at 26.8% in 2024, this was slightly lower than 27.2% a decade earlier.
To date, at least 30 million hectares of trees have been planted. Authorities noted a significant drop in the number and strength of dust storms, especially in areas like Beijing. Tree planting has helped stabilize soil and improve local climates, supporting agriculture and reducing desertification. While these achievements are important, concerns about the long-term effects of such large-scale projects remain.
Criticisms and challenges
Hong Jiang, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, was concerned that trees might take in a lot of water from the ground, which could cause serious problems for dry areas like northern China. Dee Williams, an anthropologist with the US Department of the Interior, noted that China had faced challenges in past efforts to stop desertification and warned that planting trees is only a short-term solution and does not change people's behavior.
In December 2003, Alex Steffen, an American futurist, wrote on his website Worldchanging that China was not working with local communities or sharing information to support the Green Wall project. China’s growing pollution has also harmed the soil, making it unsuitable for use in many areas.
Studies of reforested areas on the Loess Plateau found that planting many trees of the same type in dense groups could make water shortages worse. These forests lose more water from the soil than farmland does.
Planting large blocks of fast-growing trees also reduces the variety of plants and animals in forests, making some areas unsuitable for species that normally live there. John MacKinnon, head of the EU-China Biodiversity Programme, said, “China plants more trees than the rest of the world combined, but they are often only one type of tree. These areas are not good places for birds to live.” The lack of variety also makes trees more likely to get sick. In 2000, a disease destroyed one billion poplar trees in Ningxia, undoing 20 years of planting work. Some scientists in China argue that planting only one type of tree is better at absorbing carbon dioxide than slower-growing forests, even though it reduces diversity. A study from January 2023 found that only one out of five planted forests became a full forest within 10 years, and only one out of 10 remained after 40 years. Shrubland, however, was more successful, with nearly half surviving after 10 years and one-third still present by 2017.
Liu Tuo, head of the Desertification Control Office in the State Forestry Administration, said there are large gaps in China’s efforts to restore land that has turned into desert. By 2011, about 1.73 million square kilometers of land in China had become desert, of which 530,000 square kilometers could be treated. At the 2011 rate of treating 1,717 square kilometers of land each year, it would take 300 years to restore all the desertified land.
Critics also question whether the project has successfully stopped the Gobi Desert from spreading, as the dry climate and poor soil make it hard to grow trees long-term. While the project has made progress in planting trees, it has not fully addressed the root causes of desertification, such as overgrazing and farming practices that harm the land.