Yulin, Shaanxi: From Desert City to Green Oasis with Ecological Prosperity

In April, Yulin in Shaanxi Province is embraced by spring breeze, with all things reviving. At Hekou Reservoir Wetland in Yuyang District, flocks of migratory birds rest comfortably, some playing on the water and others soaring high, forming a vibrant picture with the distant reed marshes. This is not only a gift from nature, but also a green miracle nurtured by the people of Yulin with decades of hard work. Standing at the intersection of the conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the planning of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Yulin, once a "desert city", has now delivered a solid green report card.

International Online reported that Yulin is located in the core area of the Yellow River’s "Ji-shaped bend" and serves as an important ecological barrier to block sandstorms from entering the Central Plains, Beijing and Tianjin. Facing the most challenging task of controlling the Mu Us Desert, Yulin has implemented key projects such as the "Dual Carbon" initiative and the 6th Phase of the Three-North Shelterbelt Program according to local conditions. The average vegetation coverage of treatable sandy land in the city has reached 57.4%, with a total afforestation and grass planting area of 6.9138 million mu, ranking first in the province in both overall scale and annual tasks.

While promoting ecological greening, Yulin also focuses on enriching people and increasing their income. Relying on the ecological advantages of the sandy land, the city has used technological innovation to solve the problem of "strong ecology but weak economy", making the larch grafting Korean pine technology the key to a "green bank". Korean pine, a second-class national protected plant, has high economic value, while larch, a pioneer tree species for desert control, has long faced the bottleneck of insufficient economic benefits, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

Guo Caiyun, Chief of the Economic Forest Research Section of Yulin Forestry Science Research Institute, introduced that Yulin launched the research on larch grafting Korean pine technology in 2010. "When we took over the research in 2013, the grafting survival rate was only about 30%. After three years of repeated experiments, the first batch of grafted Korean pines successfully bore cones in 2016," she said. Now the survival rate has stabilized above 94%, with a per mu output value of 2,000 yuan in the peak production period, far higher than the 300 yuan of ordinary larch plantations.

This technology won the first prize of Yulin Science and Technology Progress Award in 2019 and was included in the National Forestry and Grassland Science and Technology Achievement Database. It has nurtured more than 800,000 seedlings and built over 20,000 mu of demonstration forests in multiple counties and districts, achieving a "double harvest" of ecological protection and economic benefits. International Online noted that the technology has moved the growing area of Korean pine southward by 1 to 2 latitudes, enriching the diversity of tree species in the sandy area.

To protect the hard-won ecological achievements, Yulin has fully implemented the forest chief system and established a four-level forest chief system at city, county, town and village levels. It has also signed cooperation agreements with Ordos in Inner Mongolia and Qingyang in Gansu to jointly control the Mu Us Desert. With a total wetland area of 9,749.41 hectares, Yulin is home to the world’s largest breeding ground for Relict Gulls—Hongjiannao Lake, and the northernmost end of Crested Ibis northward expansion.

Yulin has vigorously promoted the revitalization of economic forest industries, with a forestry output value exceeding 12 billion yuan. Wang Jiandong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Branch of Xiaojihan Forest Farm in Yuyang District, said, "In the past, we controlled deserts to survive; now we plant trees to live a better life and enable people to get rich from green development." The city’s 2,400 ecological rangers from poor households earn nearly 10,000 yuan per person annually, truly realizing ecological benefits that benefit the people.