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To combat desertification, China has encircled Taklimakan Desert with a sand-blocking green belt
(peertube.mesnumeriques.fr)
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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sino
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I have to wonder how these things will play out over decades.
Making even small changes to ecosystems can cause massive issues as chain reactions are created, and China has been undertaking massive geo-engineering projects.
I hope they play out positively and the world gets a framework on how to do it safely and sustainably.
China has actively been combating the spread of desert in the region, trying to return the local ecosystem to what it was like millennia ago, as far as I know, they aren't intended to turn every desert in the country into a forest, just trying to restore the natural environment to previous conditions.
But why is the desert spreading?
If it happened over a few millennia, wouldn't it be a natural process?
The Sahara was probably originally made by humans over farming/grazing the land in the first thousand years of agriculture. Egyptians even had interesting records of large rivers going through the area.
Search Lake Megachad. Basically it's a tale of ancient overgrazing of a fragile ecosystem causing a giant dust bowl and major expansion of deserts, causing one of earths largest lakes to almost disappear
This sounds like one of those cool america facts memes like, "environmentalists have been trying to save this bird species for decades. Look up Operation Condor"
It's worth noting that this was during the African Humid Period where all of North Africa had more rainfall than usual, so the Sahara's desertification afterwards may have been a return to normal
Lake Gigachad would have survived
Human activities even before capitalism have created and spread desserts. Basically, humans have been clearing out forests to make crop lands since the dawn of agriculture. But crop lands are susceptible to desertification because tree trucks/canopies block wind, and their roots hold soil preventing erosion from wind/landslides/floods.
Capitalism and the industrial revolution speed up trends that previously took centuries and millenia into ones that occur over years and decades. There will likely come a time, if we don't reverse course, where the amazon will be deforested and become a dessert.