sand town becomes oasis-人生就是博官网

“in 2004, some experts said that if dese.jpgication continues at the current speed, the two deserts will merge when minqin oasis run out of groundwater in 17 years.”

han jierong was shocked when he discovered online that the oasis was disappearing and the desert was advancing in his hometown. while still a student at lanzhou university at the time, he made a decision. he applied for a domain name, created a webpage, and gave the website the name of “saving minqin”.

han jerong and a four-year-old saxaul sapling in the ecological forest.

as part of gansu province, minqin county lies northeast of the hexi corridor and downstream of the shiyang river basin. it is bounded by and wedged between the tengger and badain jaran deserts in the east, west and north, forming a bulwark on china’s northwest line.

since the 1950s, however, a large amount of vegetation has died out and the regional ecological environment has deteriorated rapidly as water from the upper reaches of shiyang river has decreased year by year and the groundwater has been over-exploited in minqin oasis.

“we must do something for our hometown, or else we will be homeless and become environmental refugees.” for han jierong, saving minqin oasis means saving the hometown. therefore, a battle of turning the desert into an oasis in guodong village has continued to this day.

the first saxaul sapling planted

in 2004, when news coverage predicted that minqin would disappear and become a second lop nor, this small county in northwest china was brought to public attention. the survival of minqin therefore became an all-consuming issue for the minqin people and even for the entire country.

after reading the coverage in april, 2004, han jierong decided to set up the saving minqin website with his professional expertise. initially the website was very basic. it consisted of only eight chinese characters saying “protecting the hometown and shouldering responsibility for it”, followed by a message board. however, despite the simplicity of the site, the number of visitors was remarkable.

ma junhe, a native of guodong village in jiahe town, works outside his hometown almost all year round. when he first learned from the news that minqin may disappear, he was shocked into silence. how he wished it was not true, so he kept looking for information about minqin online. then, like many others concerned about minqin, ma junhe unintentionally visited the saving minqin website and engaged in heated discussions. through the internet, ma junhe and han jierong became acquainted and later became partners in the planting saxaul trees. later on, they became acquainted with other individuals who have joined their efforts in protecting minqin’s ecology.

a variety of whimsical ideas sprung up during online discussions, but few feasible solutions were offered. in the end, they came to a consensus: “if minqin oasis disappears, it will directly threaten the security of the hexi corridor, which is china’s western strategic corridor and the core of the silk road.”

han jierong and ma junhe decided to return to minqin to plant saxaul. “as minqin youth, we may prevent regrets only if we put in our best efforts. we do not know whether minqin will disappear in 17 years. that’s a question for the future.” there was a pure aspiration shared by ma junhe and his friends.

building on the saving minqin website, han jierong and ma junhe established the saving minqin volunteers association in june 2006. during the 2007 spring festival, the two spent the holiday riding motorcycles to investigate suitable desert areas for afforestation.  having contracted 400 mu (approximately 26.7 hectares) of land in his name, ma junhe began to march into the desert. through their website and social media, they organized volunteers to plant the first saxaul sapling in guodong village.

ma junhe

ma junhe vividly recalls that the first saxaul sapling was planted on april 15th. the next morning, over 10,000 saxaul were planted thanks to the efforts of more than 30 volunteers who brought tools and drove more than 350 kilometers from lanzhou to minqin.

among this group are veterans in wheelchairs, senior people with gray hair, and toddlers who help their parents carry saplings even before they are able to walk steadily on their own. many of the volunteers came after they read the news, and their enthusiasm was very touching to ma junhe.

the countering force for dese.jpgication: oasis

from the internet to the real world, han jierong and ma junhe are becoming increasingly familiar with the desert. as they travel more frequently to the desert, problems also arise. in 2008, han jierong, who graduated with a master's degree, went to work in an environmental protection company, and ma junhe served as the regional manager of a pharmaceutical company, in charge of the sales business in northwest china. they both had their own jobs, but with the increase of volunteer activities to save minqin, they spent all their spare time on this public welfare undertaking, which adversely affected their life and work.

in december 2007, the key management plan for the shiyang river basin was approved by the state. as a result, farmers were encouraged by the government to develop water-saving and high-efficiency agricultural practices and desert industry, and the local authority became increasingly determined to combat dese.jpgication.

“someone has to step up and fully engage in it.” ma junhe said. in the spring of 2009, he resigned from his sales position at a pharmaceutical company to devote in dese.jpgication control and afforestation .

“reality and ideal are very far apart and the real world can be cruel.” ma junhe added that the enthusiasm of volunteers declined over time, and raising fund is also a challenge. his savings from previous job were all invested in saxaul planting. in those days, ma junhe often ran into the desert and sat for half a day, gazing at little saxaul trees that were less than knee-high, and sometimes he even shed tears.

one year after returning home for planting saxauls, ma junhe decided to once again “escape” from minqin. he packed and left for lanzhou in search of jobs.

coincidentally, in the afternoon of april 24th when ma junhe went to lanzhou to meet han jierong, a severe sandstorm struck with a wind force between the level 10 and 11. the sandstorm cut a swath from the west to the east and lasted for more than three hours in minqin. thousands of greenhouses were destroyed, along with tens of thousands of hectares of crops. that night, neither of them slept. they kept posting real-time updates about minqin’s situation on major portals, which drew the attention of the entire nation.

“the hangzhou daily launched a campaign called ‘saving minqin and promoting green development’, which raised funds and sped up saxaul planting.” ma junhe said. and given it a serious consideration after the sandstorm, he decided to go back. 

since 2011, many non-profit organizations have joined forces to save minqin, including tencent foundation and narada foundation. today, a number of projects have been implemented, including the volunteers ecological forest in guodong village, the online tree planting initiative “our village, our hometown”, as well as the comprehensive ecological protection for saving minqin, an innovative model of ecological protection. efforts to save minqin are carried out in an orderly manner.

previously, han jierong and ma junhe jointly initiated “10 yuan for one saxaul sapling and 700 yuan for one mu (around 0.067 hectares) of saxaul forest” from their practical experience, which has become the standard for planting trees online. their efforts have proved the viability of a public welfare model, in which social organizations may use the internet to promote afforestation and prevent dese.jpgication and maintain the model’s long-term viability through continual innovation. “saving minqin—volunteer actions in oasis” has become a role model for chinese public welfare organizations to fight dese.jpgication.

only by retaining local people can the saxaul survives

the new saxaul sapling looks like grass, but when it grows into a tree, it can be 5 to 8 meters tall and deeply root in the desert, like a guard against the encroaching wind and sand. the survival rate of the volunteers ecological forest is between 65% and 91%, according to the statistics of han jierong and his team.

standing against the wind and basking in the sun, the saxaul strives to seek water for its survival in the desert. similarly, ma junhe is also looking for a way to live in the desert. for him, only by ensuring the survival of saxauls can the speed of wind and sand be reduced; only by effectively reversing dese.jpgication and degradation can retain the local people, treat the symptoms and cure the root cause simultaneously.

“there is no economic benefit in planting saxaul. unlike pine trees or poplars, saxauls cannot be cut and sold as wood in the future.” in the early years, it’s said that cistanche deserticola could be inoculated on saxauls, so ma junhe went to learn about this technology and made it in 2012. affected by many factors, selling cistanche deserticola through e-commerce was uneasy.

until 2013, minqin county had focused on the development of characteristic forest and fruit industry, adjusted the planting structure to water-saving water, and promoted the planting of red wolfberry, red dates and other economic trees with high profit and low water consumption. ma junhe mentioned that some people in the village had grown red wolfberry but could not sell out, ready to cut down trees and abandon seeds, he started to put these agricultural products on the online-shopping website. unlike his expectation, wolfberry and red dates have received surprising feedback as soon as they hit the shelves.

in order to find high-quality products, ma junhe visited every village, selected and cultivated 16 varieties of featured agricultural products in two years. he and his team registered trademarks such as saxaul farm, connected with the market through e-commerce, built the brand image of desert agricultural products, and secured a good price for the featured agricultural products growing on the edge of the desert. driven by the rural youth e-commerce cultivation project in gansu province, ma junhe also hammered out an e-commerce assistance plan and signed off-take agreements with 152 peasant household.

in front of the camera, ma junhe with a strong northwestern accent is introducing “mr. sandy melon” (literally mr. shagua in chinese). “mr. sandy melon” is not only the wechat alias of ma junhe, but also the honeydew melon brand he built on the e-commerce platform. minqin’s honeydew melon has a time-honored history. thanks to the special climatic conditions，the honeydew melon was sweet and tasty. someone even praised minqin honeydew after tasting it: there are only two kinds of melons in the world, one is called minqin honeydew and the other doesn’t have a name. this time, ma junhe focused on the honeydew melon. in 2017, “mr. sandy melon” was launched on the e-commerce platform and became very popular. in the whole year, five hundred tons of honeydew melons were sold, bringing farmers over 2 million yuan in income.

ma junhe also launched an activity: every time consumers buy a box of “mr. sandy melon”, they will plant a saxaul in the consumers’s forest. “this is a crowdfunding model. the pre-sale of honeydew melon amounts to several hundred thousand yuan and the cost of planting saxaul comes from the donations of consumers.”

villagers are packing "mr. sandy melon" honeydew.

“the retail price of honeydew melon of minqin farmers rose from between 50 and 60 cents to 1.5 yuan.” ma junhe explained that, for local farmers, the increase in income means that the pressure on land dese.jpgication is reduced. on the one hand, with the increase of unit output value, farmers don’t need to reclaim wasteland and dig wells to make a living; on the other hand, more people will stay in minqin, which can solve the prominent contradiction between life and ecology of residents in desert areas.

ma junhe believes that only by improving local life and letting people know that there is hope to stay in their hometown will they truly stay. only by retaining people can the minqin oasis be preserved.

minqin will never die out

during the interview, han jierong showed us two maps . the yellow and green color blocks clearly mark the planning and completed areas of each volunteers ecological forest. there is a forest in the east in jiahe town, and another in the west in changning town.

since 2007, han jierong has built six volunteers ecological forest bases in minqin county, planting 62,000 mu (around 4,129 hectares) of saxaul and other trees, effectively addressing the floating sand dunes around 12 villages, so that the life and production of nearly 10,000 villagers are no longer attacked by quicksand.

anti-dese.jpgication efforts are still going on. now ma junhe’s one year is being spent in this way: in spring and autumn, he helps with saxaul planting and sand control; in summer, he helps farmers sell honeydew melons; in winter, he goes to the south to raise funds and helps cooperative members sell wolfberry and cynomorium songaricum.

han jierong told us that they are about to be funded by tencent foundation and narada foundation to develop a real-life display platform of desert management in minqin county based on gis and drone aerial photography. volunteers or donors can check the growth of their donated trees through a program called “one person, one tree”. they have also developed self-propelled tree planting robots with several institutions to reduce the cost of sand control.

despite the hesitation and escape of han jierong and ma junhe in the earlier days, they eventually chose to be persistent and hard-working in saving minqin. up to now, han jierong still keeps the first-time chat record between him and ma junhe. he said with a smile that he might write a memoir when he grew old. now he occasionally looks over it to remind himself not to forget the original aspiration of restoring the ecology in his hometown.

half of the long history of minqin is about how people fought with sand control during different historical periods. in the third section of minqin memorial hall for prevention and control of dese.jpgication, entitled “heroes for anti-dese.jpgication, monuments in oasis”, the story of the battle of generations to control dese.jpgication is clearly told. “the first generation of sand control is represented by xue wanxiang and yang kechang, the second generation is represented by shi shuzhu, and the third generation is lacking in any particularly prominent figures.” ma junhe said while he counted, “now we are the fourth generation.”

when asked about the difference between ma junhe and his predecessors, he thought it was the use of the internet and market-oriented means to mobilize more forces to participate, which made this meaning efforts spread from minqin to the entire country and even the whole world. “it’s like a drop of water in the soil that is easily evaporated under the sun. now, we have integrated this drop of water into the vast sea. anyone who is interested in dese.jpgication control and willing to participate can come to join us in minqin.”

today, ma junhe’s story of sand control has also been written in the memorial hall: “these scenes show that ma junhe, a local young man, has been using the ‘internet plus sand control’ model since 2009, and has mobilized more than 50,000 volunteers from all over the world to plant more than 40,000 mu (around 2,664 hectares) of trees in minqin, thus creating a new way of sand control by mobilizing more forces in the society.”

at the entrance of minqin county, the mantra of “minqin must not become another lop nur” is still striking. it has been 18 years since the news coverage about the disappearance of minqin.

the 2-year-old saxaul tree in the volunteer ecological forest of sifangdun, autumn, 2021.

as for the question regarding whether minqin will disappear or not, the saxaul planted by han jierong and ma junhe has already provided the best answer.