How China is using a wall of trees to hold back the desert

The Three-North Shelter Forest Programhas managed to push back desertification by raising a green barrier expected to stretch 4,500 kilometers.

About the author

Javier Pardo Torregrosa

Business Ethics and Sustainability Specialist

Law graduate with a Master's degree in International Business Law. Having practised as a lawyer in the early years of his professional career, he has specialised in business ethics and sustainability.

He has worked as a social impact consultant, has been a researcher at the CaixaBank Chair of Sustainability and Social Impact at IESE Business School, and has also taught at other business schools and vocational training centres.

Since 2023 he has also been a contributor to Ethic magazine, which specialises in sustainability.

Meet the author

Have you ever heard of the new Great Wall of China? It rises in the same northern steppes and arid regions where part of the ancient defensive barrier once stood. But unlike the original, built of stone to fend off northern neighbours, this new wall is made of trees and vegetation — and its purpose is to halt environmental degradation in the Gobi, Maowusu and Taklamakan deserts. These expanding deserts threaten roughly 27% of China’s territory. Here’s what you need to know about the Green Great Wall.

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Building the Green Wall: the Three-North Shelter Forest Program

Everything stems from the Three-North Shelter Forest Program (TNSFP), launched by the Chinese government in 1978, which stands as the most ambitious reforestation effort in the world. It aims to raise a “wall” of trees that will extend some 4,500 kilometres across northern China by 2050. The goals are to curb desertification, contribute to carbon capture and restore habitats for wildlife. In addition, the project has created millions of jobs and revitalised rural economies, once again demonstrating the importance of linking environmental challenges with economic and social development.

Desertification: one of today’s greatest environmental threats

The United Nations defines desertification as the degradation of ecosystems and biodiversity in arid, dry and semi-arid areas, as well as the advance of sand dunes, driven mainly by human activity and worsened by climate variability. It is recognized as one of today’s greatest environmental challenges, with degradation of arable land now spreading at a pace 30 to 35 times faster than in historical periods. The diagnosis is grim: 77% of global land is drier than it was just 30 years ago.

Among the main causes are indiscriminate logging, uncontrolled urban expansion, poor management of water resources, pollution of soil and aquifers, overgrazing, unregulated intensive agriculture, abandonment of farmland, and wildfires.

To curb the advance of desertification, all these factors must be addressed: promoting sustainable urban growth in vulnerable areas, ensuring responsible use of soil and water resources, implementing ecological farming methods such as cover crops and crop rotation, or encouraging rotational grazing to allow soil and vegetation to recover. Yet adapting human activity alone is not enough: ambitious reforestation projects are required to reverse the trend. China’s case offers one such example.

Scope and results of the Three-North Shelter Forest Program

This ambitious plan has accounted for 25% of global reforestation in the past decade — turning China not only into an industrial giant, but also into a reforestation leader. To date, the program has planted more than 66 billion trees and rehabilitated over 150,000 square kilometers of land, an area larger than the entire United Kingdom.

China’s green belt, which already stretches more than 3,000 kilometers, is made up of drought-resistant species such as saxauls, poplars, red willows, salt cedars, and legumes.

This vegetation slows the movement of sand dunes and acts as a windbreak against dust storms that, every year, eroded soils and led to the loss or degradation of 2,300 square kilometers of farmland, while carrying dust clouds across the country. The program has also contributed to slowing global warming, as the vast planted areas have created a new carbon sink able to absorb a substantial share of industrial emissions.

Challenges for China’s Green Great Wall

While the program has reported positive outcomes, its overall impact remains limited. In the past ten years, desertified land in China decreased only slightly, from 27.2% to 26.8%. After more than four decades in practice, enough evidence has been gathered to start reviewing less successful methods and designing new approaches for greater effectiveness in the future.

In some areas, low biodiversity plantations have left forests more vulnerable to pests, such as in Ningxia, where more than a billion poplars were lost to disease.
Excess planting in arid zones can deplete already scarce water resources if water is not managed carefully and innovatively.
Reforestation can also trigger new challenges previously absent in these regions, such as the spread of allergies linked to wormwood, whose pollen is highly allergenic.

Although the plan has been able to correct some inefficiencies over the decades, there is still much ground to cover. Continuous monitoring and adaptive management are needed, adjusting both the plant species used and forestry practices to maximize efficiency.

Artificial intelligence: a driver of innovation and opportunity

Technology, and particularly artificial intelligence, has begun to bring significant innovations to the Three-North Shelter Forest Program:

Automation with robots: capable of drilling holes, planting seedlings, watering, and compacting soil in just five seconds per tree.
Drone-based reforestation: used to plant trees at scale in hard-to-reach areas such as the Yanshan cliffs.
Remote sensors: monitor forest health in real time and help anticipate emerging risks.

Winning ground against desertification requires perseverance

Thanks to this program, China regains living, green land from aridity each year. Once again, Chinese culture demonstrates its determination in tackling monumental, long-term human projects. Just as the Great Wall of China was raised over centuries with the effort of countless generations, this new Green Wall will also demand the commitment and perseverance of both present and future generations.

Major challenges require complex and long-term solutions. A forward-looking vision can redirect the difficulties raised by such a massive undertaking. Scientific and technological advances will be key to designing innovative approaches. And when political will, economic actors and citizen participation come together over time, what once seemed lost can be restored. This new Green Wall of China represents a hope for saving the planet.