Hopefully the reports coming out of China are correct and they've changed their approach, planting monocultures for the sake of logging gives the illusion of doing the right thing while only worsening the problems facing our planet. They do still need the wood for construction, and it's admittedly a really tough balance to strike, but if they put in enough thought and care I'm sure they can do it right!
I guess this another attempt to turn a good thing in china into a bad thing. The important thing is the desertland is not a desert anymore. The hard part is already done, turning desert sand into soil, so much easier to plant other trees/plants.
@@rap3208 No, this is an attempt at a balanced, unbiased look at a topic that few people were taking a level-headed approach to. Like any nation, China makes mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn, which is why they need to be talked about. They've changed up their approach in recent years, which is why we talk about and commend them for that towards the end, but taking lessons from early mistakes is important for moving forward and not repeating them in other projects. The fact that we've been accused of Chinese propaganda and Anti-Chinese propaganda alike is ridiculous, and I assure you we couldn't care less about whatever geopolitics come with this topic. I mean come on, most of the quoted statistics and negatives in this video came directly from Chinese scientists and the Chinese Academy of Forestry. Like those academics, we just want to do our part to reverse the damage done to the world by humanity and restore what nature we can.
Although now its obvious that a giant monoculture is bad, i imagine the science wasn't as fully proven back when the plan was first created, and the fast growth was more important since the desert expansion back then was faster. It is good to see them adjusting their approach. Luckily in places like africa, they are pushing forward with native species
Absolutely, the main purpose for this video was to relay the lessons from their early mistakes rather than condemn them for it, everything is clearer in retrospect after all. Balancing the needs of nature and China's population is an incredibly complex problem, just like it is worldwide, but recent reports seem to suggest they're closer to striking that balance now. The important thing from here is for other projects to take these past lessons into account and start off stronger! - Tom
yeah, many projects were undertaken by individuals or groups of regular people who may not necessarily have the access to research, resources, or other necessary means of engineering a biologically effective forest from literally nothing. The efforts could only be described by "heroic" yet we need the involvement of the entire society to make the change significant and long lasting
We've come a long way with tree planting science and your comment is spot on. Japan actually did the same thing and most of the newly planted Japanese forestry is monoculture. But I'm sure both China and Japan will come up with a way to address this issue.
Probably ideology and logistics rather than science: foresters, agriculturalists, and botanists have understood woodland health for many decades, but this is the same nation that decided to kill all the field sparrows and ended up with locusts rather than reduced grain loss.
I once spent 5 years in Xi'an, Shaanxi province during college years and I volunteered several times in Maowusu desert in Yulin, in the northwest of China to plant trees 🌿. I could tell you that what you said about diverting rivers to desert for tree planting is the only way we deal with desertification is totally false. We adapt the mingle forest planting techniques to tackle the desertification, which means there is a mixture of phycophyta plants, frutex plants and trees in the desert, not just trees. The order of planting these vegetations is carefully selected. You should know that the desert climate means that the water will be very quickly vaporized, so without soil to retain water, the plants, especially trees can't get enough water and will eventually die. So you can't just bluntly planting trees in the desert. Even if you drag an iceberg in the desert they will still die. So the first priority is to modify the desert and gives it the ability to retain water. The first step would be to put straws in the desert and weave these straws into little checkboxes and fixate these checkboxes in the sand to form a layout of chessboard. These chessboards of straws would help lock down the sands. Then the workers choose from phycophyta plants (e.g. algae), or herbaceous plants (e.g. grass) as per the environment of the desert to plant in these straw checkboxes. When these plants start to stretch their roots in the sand, the water will start to be retained under the surface of the sand. Then the frutex plants (e.g. Sea Buckthorn) could be planted in order to hold more water in a deeper level. At this point, we only have people carry tanks of water into the desert and water these plants every now and then. Because these plants need very minimum amount of water to survive. When these vegetations thrive and cover the whole desert, there will be a significant improvement in the circulation of water vapor. Thanks to a beign circulation of moisture, the sands could retain more and more water for trees to be planted. The type of trees should also be carefully selected, we can't use those who consume a lot of water, euphrates poplar is the best choice, as it is a indigenous plant in barren lands such as Gobi Desert in China. So the combination of phycophyta, herbaceous, frutex plants and trees will change the ecosystem of the desert gradually, and more trees could be planted to form an oasis. The irrigation relies on the water vapor circulation, water tanks or drainages. When the oasis is stable, we can get the rivers in to irrigate all vegetations, including fruit trees or other cash crops cultivated in the area. Last but not least, whether it is a propaganda or not, we Chinese succeeded in modifying the deserts. The deserts used to expand 3436km2 per year and now the deserts have retreated 1980km2 per year, which is truly beneficial for the people. There are many research institutes established in the cities near the deserts to study desertification also. This victory belongs to workers, scientists and ordinary citizens who have contributed in this mega project. This is a scientific fact that China has succeed in anti-desertification, and there is no room for unwarranted accusation since you know nothing about our methods.
It makes you wonder how a RUclipsr got ahold of the information about China's de-desertification efforts at the first place, without actually having set foot in the area, or talking to people who were involved. Of course, the RUclipsr being a Brit, has to highlight the fault, instead of the progress. Typical...
I'm surprised and really happy to see that they as a country at least are trying to do something about deforestation. They may not be getting it right but these things usually takes time, effort and a lot of adjustments. It's a step forward in the right direction and I wish more countries would be willing to take this step. A baby first step is never perfect ❤️
Such environmental issues are also in Chinese textbooks . We been educated to respect the nature by telling the story of what happened if you killed too many wolves at the age about 9. When the new generation of Chinese people started to play a bigger role in the society,I believe the environmental protection will be great here in China ❤
Not only in China,but in Thailand,Saudi Arabia,India and some of the African counties too do the same to tackle the issues related to deforestation by planting lot of trees..
@I am Fighterman Are they really arrogant just for being hopeful and wanting make a change. Will it help in the grand scheme of things. Nope. Humans destroy faster than we restore because majority are ignorant. They think it's not there problem that the world is dying. It's the future generations who will suffer right. But it affects everyone. One person can't make a change but can you imagine if everyone starts trying to make a change. One mosquito don't even take a drop of blood from you because of how small they are. A swam of mosquitoes can drink a cow until not even a droplet of blood is left. The more people who are aware and try to do better for mother earth, the less earth get destroyed. So many species of animals and plants are rapidly getting extinct due to human irresponsible ways. Many know of this problem, a few want to help but rarely anyone really do.
Dead wood is an important part of a forest too. It creates a habitat for fungi which is very important for rebuilding soils long term, as well as supporting insect life. So we shouldn't see dead trees as a failure.
True as that is, the 'wrong' species of tree will host many fewer species of fungi and bacteria than native species, both in life and in death. Still a lot better than desert obviously. The symbiosis of trees and fungi is super interesting and we're only just scratching the surface with the research done in recent years.
@@Deckzwabber Fungi are really underrated in general. In elementary school I learned that the trees are the reason that we can live on earth but we didn't learn that the fungi are the reason that the trees can live on earth. Now I'm very glad when I see some spruce trees in the fall with a happy bunch of fly agaric fruiting below them.
Not planting the correct species of native trees @rumade won't benefit the fungal ecosystem because every fungus is specific to the tree species it eats.... duh!!!
@@talleyphillippe-mclain2040 there are many cosmopolitan species of fungi that prosper in temperate and northern forests across the world Your "duh" was rude and unnecessary
I love the fact that China tried, learned from this, and tried again with the lessons they learned, while other nations on earth still haven’t tried the first time at such a scale. Say what you want about them but if there is a more effective solution to a problem, as soon as they learn of it they always take the chance to implement it.
Just want to say as a Chinese who live in the northern area, I still remember how often the sand storms were 15 yrs ago when it came, sky turned yellow and wind filled with sand, I had difficulty walking to school. But now, we hardly have any sand storms anymore. Stopping deforestation is only the first step, rebuilding the whole ecosystem would be the eventual goal, but given China is still a developing country and lacks a lot of resources when these trees were planted. But I believe we will eventually make it.
For me the most relevant comparison is the baseline of doing nothing: Even planting monocultures that dont create new habitat seems better than letting the desert take over. There was only one argument why it could detremental. So overall it seems really worth the try with the goal to continuosly learn and improve upon it.
The opportunity costs are immense though. If you spend thousands of man hours and the associated money and ressources on a project that only doesn't entirely fail 15% of the time, it's a huge waste if you could instead do it in a way that pushes the success rate up to maybe 50% or even more.
@@dingus_doofus But the thing is: Doing this project with a success rate of 15% made the success rate of the second project increase. The areas where monocultures were planted were not as habitable as they are now thank to this "failed project. These trees that died provided shade and pulled water up from deep in the ground (where shrubs, bushes, and YOUNG TREES cannot reach). They are decomposing and providing nutrients to the surface level soil. The idea that the monoculture trees use a lot of water is half true, trees use a lot of water, BUT they also provide shade which prevents evaporation via the sun beaming on the land. The amount of water these trees use was severely exaggerated. These monocultures helped set up the land to be more forgiving, and now the native trees that are planted will have a higher likelihood of setting root. To use your example, it's basically a choice between doing Project 1 with a 30% success rate, or doing Project 2 with 15% success rate first to then raise Project 1's success to 50%+.
@@dingus_doofus plus as a environment major student，the process of stop desertification is always about soil not the survival rate of the trees we plant at first place，even the dead trees root will hold water，soil. which means there will be a much higher survival possibilities for future plants.
I grew up in Chang Bai Mountain, close to the North Korean border. When I was a kid during the 90s, I remember pretty clearly all forest areas, including trees and animals were protected by criminal laws and enforced by the forestry bureau (they even have armed forces), you can't even spark a fire during the fall/winter season in those areas.
environmental engineering is so terribly difficult and so crucially important at the same time. hopefully in the next couple hundred years we would have learned enough from these attempts to understand how to more effectively improve our environment.
@@dewinmoonl I guess it’s a double edged sword haha, but the way things are in the United States at the moment I would kind of prefer authoritarianism, too much arguing and finger pointing not enough action for the people
@@dewinmoonl As if America isn't authoritarian. If anything it's a schizophrenic authoritarianism that is incapable of long term projects like this. American has the largest prison population in the world. It has the worst healthcare system in any even slightly comparable nation. How is getting cancer from our shitty food (that has been lobbied extensively to feed us), and subsequently going bankrupt and homeless from medical bills not authoritarian? The thing with America is that we get to hide behind the free market. The free market is more authoritarian than Xi could dream of, and the best thing about it is that it completely obfuscates responsibility of any individual, or even system of governance. We take it for granted that a medical emergency can bankrupt you. Ask the average Chinese citizen, they'll tell you that's authoritarian. This, of course is not even mentioning the authoritarianism that American exports throughout the world. America helped the Indonesian government genocide and "disappear" 2 million Indonesian communists in the 70s. The wars in the middle east have resulted in near a million deaths. We carpet bombed Korea destroying all their infrastructure and killing 10-20% of their population. We killed ~2 million Vietnamese civilians. We are currently embargoing Afghanistan, allowing thousands and soon much more to die from starvation. I can go on. How is that not authoritarian? Take off your blinders.
@@ayoitsyayo “I would prefer the great leader to line the his pockets at the expense of my rights because keeping up with politics of a democracy us too hard for me"
In this project i gently assume that monoculture trees are the most suitable selection to start this project, because they're good at restoring the soil and keeping the water. In addition, this method has been proved to work in any places in Europe, first invented and tested in Germany. Dead trees are NOT a bad thing at all, it provides a great environment for fungus to grow, which leads to more biodiversity. When the soil is ready, they will be inserting local vegetation and trees, which they are starting to do in recent years, as some guys said, to make the point clear, if they have started planting local vegetation from the beginning, those plants would have all died! Don't you see, it's hard to plant in sand lol. Just do not believe everything YT sais, because everyone can be wrong, so does this youtuber. If this project hasn't ended as they've had planned to be, it doesn't means that this is failure, because we're just in the midle of the long run of environmental protection. So without saying who I am referring to (some stupid guy that made me very uncomfortable reading his comments), it is impossible to see great change in less than a decade, if your neurones are still working. You can't come up with the perfect solution when you are doing something that no country has done in the past in such a big scale. And EVERYONE THAT IS NOT DUMB AND BLIND AND THINKS THAT I AM CHINESE PROPAGANDA can clearly see that the situation is getting better and better, this great nation is learning from its mistakes and preparing itself for its next try. At least this is much better than the countries that are criticizing and doing nothing, if China waited till their "perfect plan 100% success", the desertification would have became more uncontrollable. Just saying that they wouldn't be able to come up with a better plan without China's tryouts and effort. And just for some ppl that don't know, politics is war without bleeding, and med ia is a tool for the govnmt. Just have your own thoughts, and don't be manipulated by politicians.
Those specific trees, according to the video, were unsustainable in those areas, and actually made the ground drier and prevented grasses and shrubs from groing. Now as my only source for this is this video, that's all I got to go on. It seems they made some big mistakes in the begining, but they are recogmizing and correcting those flaws
You can either see it as some kind of extremely intelligent plan ahead of it's time or as a bad decision that accidentally had consequences that are great for the future(or anything in between). The important is that efforts are being made to help the planet.
You see, it doesn't matter what you say. It's wrong, it's evil, it's dumb, it's incompetent and it's low quality plain and simply because it's China. No other reasoning, no other commentary. China is doubleplusungood and they can't do anything right
"...first invented and tested in Germany." Ah the white man always claiming they invented things first. lol Is there any proof to your claim? Did you look at all civilization? How far back did you look? etc. lol
Wait! I think the plan was always: - grow fast growing and dry resistant plants to stop desertification -> slowly introduce less and less dry resistant plants into the mix -> keep this up until native plants can grow again/plant them again -> success
@@MalekitGJ most of the water absorbed by the tree goes to its leaf so he was correct. Monoculture was used to plant trees that will be felled after decades but this trees nurture the land. Trees don't magically absorb water into abyss. They are a vessel to avoid evaporation of water. Thats how rainforest was made.
@@markeubertnoblezada5525 "after decades", make it ONE decade or less. Also, monoculture of fast growing trees tend to kill every plant that is water dependant. BTW, dude, do you even rainforest? did those zones had enough rainwater drop for humidity to stay high? how much of the time those zones are bathered by the sun? it is close to the ecuator? or does it have a chain of mountains trapping clouds to make it more rainy?
It's really hard to know what's really going on, China lies a lot, but Western media likes to exaggerate China problems a lot, depending on who you follow China is paradise or North Korea
Monoculture is cheap and can cover the most area, there's no "going wrong" with it when you are literally fighting against the desert with nothing. In fact, spamming a monoculture, even if it fails, helps create favourable conditions for the second wave of greening. The problem with many scientists and activists is that they keep demanding for the optimal solutions with zero regards to the actual socio-economical and even geopolitical situation.
Have you ever been in China, especially Northwest China? In 1980s and 1990s, I experienced much more and devorstated sand storms in Spring season of each year. After year 2000, I went to Southern China till the year 2008. In the year of the Olympic Game in Beijing, I came to Beijing and lived there since then. I could barely experience sand storms, which made me curious of the reason of this comparison. Until 2013, I had the opportunity to go back to Northwest by car, and during that 1,200 kilometers drive, I saw the green mountains and plain fields that not exsisted twenty years earlier. This is why I have very different opinion toward this video. I understand the science matter it included, but if you can also experience the gradually disappear of a desert which I had visited almost every year during Spring tour, you will definitely abstract what you just told.
As a Chinese, I tell you Don't explain anything. These videos are sponsored by Western organizations. If a media is related to politics, you can't get 100% facts from the media. For example, this video implies 15% is very low for the survival rate of the trees. Is it unacceptable? I don't know.
I'm sorry, but you seem to have misunderstood the point of this video. It's not about how "China bad for doing this" and rather "learn from this", so everyone trying similar projects in the future uses what China has learned to avoid making similar mistakes
@@rickr9435 100%, you could argue that biodiversity only exists because different plants find a niche in (what is initially at least) a monoculture - eg there is an ideal plant for a type of arid marginal environment, then there is an ideal plant for taking advantage of the beneficial climactic impact of that plant, then there is an ideal shade tolerant plant that takes advantage of the low competition forrest floor etc. This is all precluded by the first monoculture, without this nothing else could exist. You also have to realise that this is not a project out the goodness of the Chinese governments hearts, I presume they had to compulsory purchase order millions of hectares of land and I do not doubt they are looking for a system that can give them a return on their investment.
@@kwoltekublai3337 Agreed, but I don't see the Chinese government caring about making a return on their investment. They aren't capitalist, and if they need money they just take it from the giant privatised companies, like they did with tencent.
We in Scotland have had reforestation projects that "went wrong" too. China's is either the biggest such or second biggest (Africa's 'green wall') so unsurprisingly any going wrong was on a bigger scale than here. The question is, are lessons learnt and acted on. Hopefully they are.
I totally agree on almost everything you say, exept for one thing - it has been proved many times over, that forests actually help to impruve the water circulation in the area - they save and conserve water, allowing many other plants to profit from this. So yeah - trees don't "drink up all the water" - it's the other way around - they literally bring water even to the arid areas. But everything else is on point. Planting monocultures only is especially bad idea.
Hi! Thank you for your feedback. It is true that bringing back forests will generally increase water retention. However, when those forests are non-native monocultures that were grown without taking into account natural succession this can have the exact opposite effect and dry up the area even further.
Both of you are right. Any topsoil creating forest helps to conserve water the high shade protecting fern and other undergrowth, and this second step keeps the topsoil moist and rotting. Certain yellow grasses can do this all on their own under good circumstances. (Retain soil, retain moist +retain droppings= topsoil created) But an forest that doesn't have any significant undergrowth won't be positive for the water level, lowering the water level up to meters, drying out the topsoil, which lessens rot(topsoil creation) and water retention capability, making it all worse. Edit : didn't see you there, mossy earth
@@Redicule_research._ridiculous Yes, you are right. I should have taken into account those cases as well, but they kinda slipped out of my mind due to the fact that in my vicinity forests are largely of the first, topsoil creating variety, thats why i was kinda bewildered by the phrase that forests dry out the earth. 😅
@@pluckybellhop66 It is something we can implement in our projects (although we do not try to plant trees in desertified areas), but at scale we are small fish in a big pond and we have no links in China. It does seem to be going better there now :)
I wish desertification was talked about a lot more than it is. I understand it's a slow process but it feels like places such as southern Spain have a lot of potential for growth and co2 reduction, I have seen incredible rainfall, clouds and moisture during the evening/mornings but it all just washes away or burns up by mid day because of miles of barren land. A few years ago we had a particularly wet winter/spring and the place was green like I'd never seen since buying our apartment. I could be misinformed but it sure feels like a missed opportunity.
Permaculture, things like swales should be taught in schools. Slow down water. It's really that easy. Slow water seeps into the ground, raising the underground water table that builds up over time. Then the native plants come and hold things in more and more and release precipitation and it rains. You still want water to flow but slowly.
Lol who cares about Spain. We need to focus on places where poor minorities live, in Spain a farmer can just move to the city and find a job there, for a African farmer it is either farm, join the ISIS or die
@@CameronKiesser Local farmers use swales here in Southern Spain as part of their terracing of the hillsides. They know what to do to retain water, and use drip irrigation - unfortunately the local culture regards any plant that isn't profitable as a weed so farmers just spray weed-killer around their trees. They're also planting mango and avocado trees like crazy which need a lot of water, and increasingly ripping out almond and olive trees to do so.
Nitrogen fixtaing invasive plants with the use of masive herding is very useful to combat desertification first sturdy animals like goats and donkeys. Manure is great for the land. Then you plant trees.
Sounds a lot like calling sour grape. Things can be improvised but the most important thing is to reforest the desert first, instead of just talking about it, like Mossy Earth or any Western countries.
You don't understand the concept and the method behind China's oasification/reverse desertification. First they have to plant certain type of trees just to secure the top layer of soil. Once the soils are settled, and retain water moisture ratio then they would plant other different species of trees to balance out the ecosystem. It doesn't happen overnight to turn a desert into an oasis. It took China two generations of hard work to get to where they are. You guys only talk about saving the planet, but only do so little to help. Stop complaining and criticizing until you have something better to offer.
To criticize is the first step of rectification, especially when the criticism is sound and constructive, so what the hell are you talking about? What do you propose he should do? Stay quiet about it CCP-style until something goes horribly wrong?
@@wisdomleader85 na na na u start bring up ccp thing. Jealousy 🤣🤣🤣 the admin admit they never do desert project. What china had done might not perfect yet but its so much better than having bigger desert and let it get bigger year by year. Its just 40 years right now. Maybe after me and you gone from this earth there will be more bio diversity and less desert on earth. Never stop learn bro
They'll work it out. China has proven to be very creative and adaptable. Miles ahead of New Zealand, where one exotic pine tree species is getting planted at an enormous scale, for 'carbon credits'.
there are a lot of reasons 1. science of ecology and whatnot wasn't as complete as what we have today, but the project started, as you said, in the 70s or 50s even. 2. any forest is better than no forest when the biggest threat is desertification of arable land, when you need to feed 500 million - 1.4 billion people. 3. sandstorms are annoy af. i live near the loess plateau and oh boy, has the sandstorm situation become a lot better in the last 30 years. 4. money was by far the biggest issue china had. it was one of the poorest countries in the world when the project started, so, cheap, quick fixes when budget was tight is what they went for 5. absolutely, as a bio major i agree that retaining the natural, original habitat, and slowly terraform with plenty of research backings is the best way to go. from what i've seen in the last few years around the loess plateau and eastern china, there is definitely STILL a lot of monoculture planting of nonnative trees, but there is also an increase of planting native species and introducing native animals as well. after all, the country needs to feed and satisfy 1.4 billion people, and quick fixes for the poorest, more ignorant times can no longer work in the current circumstance.
Thank you for presenting such a balanced piece of feedback for us. We really appreciate it! We wish other people in this comment sections would be more like you :) - Cheers, Duarte
@@MossyEarth you do realise it takes people a bio major or with equivalent knowledge plus the local knowledge to understand the situation. therefore I would suggest you in the future the video should be more balanced. Becuse this video to me is a little discediting the hard work of the green wall of China.
I appreciate them actually doing something in the first place. Often when large scale projects like this are planned it's just talking and more talking and nothing more happens. We're really good at talking and not actually doing anything nowadays. It's not just about our climate, forests, animals but us people to and how we interact with each other and deal with problems. Instead of fixing a problem we just talk about it and somehow that makes us "feel" good like we're doing something but nothing really happens. It's not denying that we humans have a massively negative impact on this planet and the way we're going is not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. When things do collapse(our society) it's going to be a bad time for everyone involved.
I think it's important how you define success. We also too often forget that tree lifespans are nothing like human. Satellite images contain very little information and aren't good as the only source for a conclusion.
@Yaming Liu - On the Loess plateau (all the videos are from 2008) but analysis of the photo satellites I don't call it a success : it's mainly agriculture, not forests, in small areas, abundantly watered. Very fragile: Once you stop the watering, it returns to its prime conditions. I don't deny the HUGE effort of the population who didn't agree in the first place as I remembered. The farmers saw no gain in growing trees ('People don't eat trees!'). With a population growth from 400K to 1.2 million in this area, despite the government one-child policy except for the farmers (which has been loosen in 2013 but that was a good strategy), China is still facing a huge challenge as several old civilizations did. _It just shows that with large financial and social investments, it is a real challenge for all of us :_ We're all living on the same big spaceship which is Earth, and we are not out of the woods. If we could only stop the (economic - military) wars and *_the idiotic maximizing-profits-system_* we would have greater ressources... At a point we will have to SHARE (remember the fate of the Obama Care). Edit: typos
Repent and follow Jesus my friend! Repenting doesn't mean confessing your sins to others, but to stop doing them altogether. Belief in Messiah alone is not enough to get you into heaven - Matthew 7:21-23, John 3:3, John 3:36 (ESV is the best translation for John 3:36). Contemplate how the Roman empire fulfilled the role of the beast from the sea in Revelation 13. Revelation 17 confirms that it is in fact Rome. From this we can conclude that A) Jesus is the Son of God and can predict the future or make it happen, B) The world leaders/nations/governments etc have been conspiring together for the last 3000+ years to accomplish the religion of the Israelites C) History as we know it is fake. You don't really need to speculate though because you can start a relationship with God and have proof. Call on the name of Jesus and pray for Him to intervene in your life. - Revelation 3:20 Revelation 6 1st Seal: White horse = Roman Empire conquering nations under Trajan 98-117 AD & Gospel spreading rapidly. 2nd Seal: Red horse, bloody civil wars with 32 different Emperors, most killed by the sword. 185-284 AD 3rd Seal: Black horse, economic despair from high taxes to pay for wars, farmers stopped growing. 200-250 AD 4th Seal: Pale horse, 1/4th of Romans died from famine, pestilence; at one point 5,000 dying per day. 250-300 AD 5th Seal: Diocletian persecuted Smyrna church era saints for ten years, blood crying out for vengeance. 303-312 AD 6th Seal: Political upheaval in the declining Roman Empire while the leaders battled each other. 313-395 AD Revelation 7 Sealing of 144,000, the saints, before trumpet war judgments, which led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Revelation 8 1st Trumpet: Alaric and the Goths attacked from the north, the path of hail, and set it on fire. 400-410 AD 2nd Trumpet: Genseric and the Vandals attacked the seas and coastlands, the blood of sailors in water. 425-470 AD 3rd Trumpet: Attila and the Huns scourged the Danube, Rhine & Po rivers area, dead bodies made water bitter. 451 AD 4th Trumpet: Odoacer and the Heruli caused the last Western Emperor (sun), Senate (moon) to lose power. 476 AD With the Western Roman Emperor (restrainer of 2 Thes. 2) removed; the son of perdition Popes took power. Revelation 9 Two woe judgments against the central 1/3rd and eastern 1/3rd of the Roman Empire. 612-1453 AD 5th Trumpet: Locust & scorpions point to Arabia, the rise of the Muslim army. Islam hides Gospel from Arabs. 612-762 AD 6th Trumpet: Turks released to attack Constantinople with large cannons (fire, smoke, brimstone). 1062-1453 AD Revelation 10 The little book is the printed Bible, which was needed after the Dark Ages when Scriptures were banned by Popes. Revelation 11 7th Trumpet: Martin Luther measured Roman Church; found that it’s an apostate church, not part of true temple. The two witnesses are the Scriptures and saints who proclaim the pure Gospel and testify against the antichrist Popes. Papal Church pronounced Christendom dead in 1514 AD. Silence for 3.5 years. Then Luther posted his 95 Thesis, which sparked the Protestant Reformation and brought the witnesses back to life. Millions of Catholics were saved. Revelation 12 Satan used the Roman Empire to try to wipe out the early Church, Satan was cast down as the Empire collapsed. Revelation 13 The antichrist beast Popes reigned in power 1,260 years, 538-1798, is the little horn of Daniel 7, son of perdition. The false prophet Jesuit Superior General rose to power from land (earth) of Vatican and has created many deceptions. Revelation 14 Points to great harvest during the Protestant Reformation & wrath on Catholic countries who obey antichrist Pope. Revelation 15 Overcoming saints victorious over the beast. Prelude to 7 vials and judgment on those who support Papal Rome. Revelation 16 1st Vial: The foul sore of atheism was poured out on Catholic France, leaving them with no hope, led to revolution. 2nd Vial: The French Revolution started in 1793, killed 250,000, as France had obeyed the Pope and killed saints. 3rd Vial: The French Revolution spread to rural areas of France, where Protestants had been killed in river areas. 4th Vial: The bloody Napoleonic wars shed the blood of countries who had revered and obeyed the antichrist Pope. 5th Vial: Judgment on the seat of the beast. Papal States invaded in 1798, Pope imprisoned, removed from power. 6th Vial: The Turks vast domain dried up, they were only left with Turkey. They lost control of Palestine in 1917 AD, Israel became a nation again in 1948
I'm not sure if it is true but I think I heard the reason they are going with monoculture is because they have a tiered system where the first tier is getting fast growing trees in the most airid regions to get a water table established and to get other plants growing just to start up the water cycle. Native species and natural ecosystems will develop with the presence of water. The other thing China us doing is using PLA (a type of plastic, not the military) nets to create wind barriers so they can first stop the wind from moving sand and allow plants to develop roots. Honestly even if all of the monoculture trees grow and fall that still provides nutrients for new plants, and shade from the fallen and standing trees to help retain water. They worst thing is to allow the sun to beam down on the soil itself thats how you evaporate the water and prevent new plants from taking root.
That would be quite a long time for that to happen naturally though, trees are extremely long lived. And the monoculture trees suck up nutrients and block out sunlight, preventing the possible growth of native plants I still respect the fact that they planted so many trees though, it's really cool
@@yzy8638 competition for sunlight is fierce lmao. Little grows under leaf cover, and most plants are just waiting for a tree to fall so they can claim the sunlight.
What a clickbait. The monoculture was on purpose and they picked trees, which can grow everywhere. While growing roots, taking and giving nutrient from and to the ground, the soil gets better and is then ready for different plants. This video shows once more how misinformed the average blogger is.
Very good video, one detail though. Some might find it nitpicking, but I think it's a very important detail that changes the weight of the number a lot: 1:11 - 8.6% to 23.3% is an increase of 14.7 points, not percent. 8.6% to 23.3% is in fact a 171% increase. A 14.7% increase would mean it went from 8.6% to just 9.9%.
I replied to a similar comment on here but fair point, I know this wasn't intentional but we should probably have mentioned it in both ways to be clearer
Argument-by-argument critique part 5 2:34 Here, 18% planted tree survival is criticised as a failure. The overall result of reforestation in China, as mentioned before in the video, is a 15% increase in forest cover. This must indicate some success right, even despite the difficulty of planting at the fringe of a desert? But what is the general survival rate of planted trees? In Sacramento, California, the survival of planted trees after 5 years is around 80% (Roman et al. 2014, 10.1016), which whould amount to about 50% after 15 years (100% x 0.8^3 = 50%). Should we then say that the Three-North-Shelter forest program is a failure since its survival (18%) is less than half of that of Sacramento? Considering the greater challenge of planting trees on the edge of a growing desert, I think 18% is very good in comparison. If we go to Rwanda, a country with a climate and relatively dry savannah that still is less challenging than the outskirts of the Gobi desert, 15-year survival rate of planted trees is about the same as for the Green Wall project (13%, extrapolated from 5-year survival, Murekezi et al 2013, DOI: 10.4314/rj.v1i1.4E). What Mossy Earth is doing here, is taking data that is relatively good in comparison to the global standard, and presenting them as a failure, hoping that the viewer does not have enough background knowledge to reveal the falsehoods.
Hey now we all know China bashing always gets the views from self righteous western audience! Anything China does is evil and bad, only west knows how to save the planet!
I remember flying into China for the first time, flying over Manchuria on my way to Beijing. I was shocked at how many trees I could see below. Frankly, I thought all of Manchuria had been grassland. But, nope. Lots and lots of trees. The same held true when flying through southern China. That one surprised me too--how green huge chunks of the country were.
bro，welcome to China ！ I live in henan province,from my own experience of my life, some factories are closed for a week in per month to protect the environment, even china is a developing country. And,the Manchuria is not a geographic word. Manchuria was established after Japan invaded the three northeastern provinces of China without declaring war during World War II, and Manchuria's army was all controlled by Japan - they wanted to split and gradually occupy China in this way.
Even the wrong trees fast growing and die fast than native trees. They still add nutrients on top of the sand and provide additional soil for newer growing plants. Additionally, the trees growing with the additional soil provided shield from the sun ray from heating the rocks and sand on the surface of the Earth. You should focus more on greening the Mohave desert so that the heat around the area doesn't dry up the Colorado river.
Argument-by-argument critique part 2 1:23 It is ironic that monoculture projects from the 80s in China are criticized, while mixed planting only got serious attention in Europe from around the 2000s (Lie et al 2018). The video consistently refer to the Green Wall as a monoculture, but it is most places a di-culture with birch and poplar, and many places more species. 2:18 The line of reasoning does not make sense. According to the two-layer hypothesis (see for example Langevelde et al 2010) shrubbery and grasses with shallow root systems do not compete for groundwater with trees. Here Mossy should provide some references to back up his claim.
1- They never said the others were right. They just talked about the biggest scale project and it's consequences since it's much easier to see 2- It does, water is not everything, the bushes that were adapted to the desert may not survive very well with competing vegetation from the outside, new trees growing or lack of sunlight
Turning a vast desert to forest is definetely difficult and no one has ever done that. There will be many mistake and wrong approch be applied, but I do wish it can success. If it sucess, its experience will help human to fight against global warming.
Even if you ignore Global Warming thats a beneficial project. Especially the Sahara is rapidly expanding and threatening milliond of people and their way of life. With the Lessons learned they can halt and maybe even reverse the growth. It might even help Brazil, since the forests they cut down dont grow back on their own
Anyone can be a backseat driver. But you have no idea the amount of dedication put into the project by ordinary Chinese ppl. It is a remarkable achievement nonetheless. Projects of similar scale or success hasn't been done in the US for decades, not since roosevelt.
if nothing else, I have learned today that a fast grown monoculture of trees may be good in combating desertification for one reason, if any at all, and that is that it rapidly covers the top layer of soil in what is essentially wood chips, which may help to combat the loss of water and the wind erosion. but this is a hypothesis in a youtube comments section.
It's so intriguing and even startling to hear someone putting down so overwhelmingly something so positive as treeing and greening against desertification and sandstorm that I can't help wondering the hidden agenda behind it.
All we meant to say was that 14.7 % more of the total landmass of China was covered in trees. Apologies for the poor phrasing, I hope you still got the point we were trying to make :) - Cheers, Duarte
Very well researched! As someone that helped in a reforestation project, can confirm the tree planting practices were questionable until recently. Worth noting that it's not just the illegal loggers, some county governments even log the very trees they planted 😂 There was a case where the Dunhang govt. let people turn part of the Green Wall into vineyards! I believe this particular incident pushed national govt. to form the new forestry regulation. And yeah I witnessed the sandstorm situation imrpove. If you lived in Tianjin during the spring 7~8 yrs ago, you cannot open the window for an hour without dust accumulating ALL OVER your furniture. Thankfully this is no longer the case!
@@BoleDaPole Did you miss the part where the forest was a wall against the dessert? That's like breaking your window to let in more fresh air Good for a bit, just not when it starts raining.
Repent and follow Jesus my friend! Repenting doesn't mean confessing your sins to others, but to stop doing them altogether. Belief in Messiah alone is not enough to get you into heaven - Matthew 7:21-23, John 3:3, John 3:36 (ESV is the best translation for John 3:36). Contemplate how the Roman empire fulfilled the role of the beast from the sea in Revelation 13. Revelation 17 confirms that it is in fact Rome. From this we can conclude that A) Jesus is the Son of God and can predict the future or make it happen, B) The world leaders/nations/governments etc have been conspiring together for the last 3000+ years to accomplish the religion of the Israelites C) History as we know it is fake. You don't really need to speculate though because you can start a relationship with God and have proof. Call on the name of Jesus and pray for Him to intervene in your life. - Revelation 3:20 Revelation 6 1st Seal: White horse = Roman Empire conquering nations under Trajan 98-117 AD & Gospel spreading rapidly. 2nd Seal: Red horse, bloody civil wars with 32 different Emperors, most killed by the sword. 185-284 AD 3rd Seal: Black horse, economic despair from high taxes to pay for wars, farmers stopped growing. 200-250 AD 4th Seal: Pale horse, 1/4th of Romans died from famine, pestilence; at one point 5,000 dying per day. 250-300 AD 5th Seal: Diocletian persecuted Smyrna church era saints for ten years, blood crying out for vengeance. 303-312 AD 6th Seal: Political upheaval in the declining Roman Empire while the leaders battled each other. 313-395 AD Revelation 7 Sealing of 144,000, the saints, before trumpet war judgments, which led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Revelation 8 1st Trumpet: Alaric and the Goths attacked from the north, the path of hail, and set it on fire. 400-410 AD 2nd Trumpet: Genseric and the Vandals attacked the seas and coastlands, the blood of sailors in water. 425-470 AD 3rd Trumpet: Attila and the Huns scourged the Danube, Rhine & Po rivers area, dead bodies made water bitter. 451 AD 4th Trumpet: Odoacer and the Heruli caused the last Western Emperor (sun), Senate (moon) to lose power. 476 AD With the Western Roman Emperor (restrainer of 2 Thes. 2) removed; the son of perdition Popes took power. Revelation 9 Two woe judgments against the central 1/3rd and eastern 1/3rd of the Roman Empire. 612-1453 AD 5th Trumpet: Locust & scorpions point to Arabia, the rise of the Muslim army. Islam hides Gospel from Arabs. 612-762 AD 6th Trumpet: Turks released to attack Constantinople with large cannons (fire, smoke, brimstone). 1062-1453 AD Revelation 10 The little book is the printed Bible, which was needed after the Dark Ages when Scriptures were banned by Popes. Revelation 11 7th Trumpet: Martin Luther measured Roman Church; found that it’s an apostate church, not part of true temple. The two witnesses are the Scriptures and saints who proclaim the pure Gospel and testify against the antichrist Popes. Papal Church pronounced Christendom dead in 1514 AD. Silence for 3.5 years. Then Luther posted his 95 Thesis, which sparked the Protestant Reformation and brought the witnesses back to life. Millions of Catholics were saved. Revelation 12 Satan used the Roman Empire to try to wipe out the early Church, Satan was cast down as the Empire collapsed. Revelation 13 The antichrist beast Popes reigned in power 1,260 years, 538-1798, is the little horn of Daniel 7, son of perdition. The false prophet Jesuit Superior General rose to power from land (earth) of Vatican and has created many deceptions. Revelation 14 Points to great harvest during the Protestant Reformation & wrath on Catholic countries who obey antichrist Pope. Revelation 15 Overcoming saints victorious over the beast. Prelude to 7 vials and judgment on those who support Papal Rome. Revelation 16 1st Vial: The foul sore of atheism was poured out on Catholic France, leaving them with no hope, led to revolution. 2nd Vial: The French Revolution started in 1793, killed 250,000, as France had obeyed the Pope and killed saints. 3rd Vial: The French Revolution spread to rural areas of France, where Protestants had been killed in river areas. 4th Vial: The bloody Napoleonic wars shed the blood of countries who had revered and obeyed the antichrist Pope. 5th Vial: Judgment on the seat of the beast. Papal States invaded in 1798, Pope imprisoned, removed from power. 6th Vial: The Turks vast domain dried up, they were only left with Turkey. They lost control of Palestine in 1917 AD, Israel became a nation again in 1948
2:32 15% of planted trees surviving is not a bad statistic given the scale and through that resulting lack of care and protection for the individual sapling. Here in germany you usually plant 3 saplings for every plant tree, so a success rate of 33% and that is with fences and in rich soil. So I would say that 15% to stop a desert is pretty good, however if they didn't plan with those losses than it is ofcourse a problem
To all the backyard garden experts here, just so you know, in your country no matter how much effort you put up you can't even do 1/20th of the work the Chinese has done over there.
Regrettably these issues are often at an impasse with locals who know the land and green bureaucrats who think they know better. We've had a "forestry expert" (city guy that went straight from high school to university) lecture us about "preserving these old growth forests" while unwittingly standing on a bark dump from a previous logging site. The response when this was pointed out was something to the effect of "shut up you stupid rural peasants, who has the diploma here?".
@wish . Moral does not matter to their works you just simply cope. As though all engineers have no morals. They are just more rational and logical and analytically
I remember that several years ago there was news that a private grape farmland secretly cut down the ecological newly planted trees to steal more land to grow grapes (grapes absorb much more water than other plants), Chinese people criticized fiercely on the Internet, almost everyone around me was annoyed at that time. Many individuals checked the satellite map to seek for evidence. China not only plant trees, the most important contribution of the large-scale project is to make everyone realize the beauty and importance of greenland, now when we buy a house, the green rate of community has become an important index.
I think the goal is not to plant in the desert at all but do so simply in the areas the desert is expanding. Then make sure you only use a mix of native species so you do not upset the balance in these ecosystems.
@@MossyEarth its funny that human took so many lands, built cities and roads made the world that inhabit and caused extinction the so mana=y species. and now you care few species in desert.lol
@@MossyEarth Said by people live in wealthy countries that don't have much desertification problem and don't have to take care of 1.4 billion people! What a easy solution!
From MVP to final product. Giant and complex project like this is impossible to be done right in one go. There’s a lot of learning when doing the project. The good thing is that the project still going on and keeps improving. A lot of learnings can benefit other countries and organisations from making the same mistakes.
This is a lot of negative feedback to China's very ambitious project, which has improved greatly over time. The end of the video gives them some credit, but I don't like the overall tone of basically saying 'no' to China's reforestation. I think they deserve massive credit for their project. They are doing and have done WAY more than the US has, and I think we should absolutely learn from and be inspired by them. Instead of the negative tone, I wish this video simply focused on what worked and highlighted the lessons learned, such as avoiding monocultures. For example, even monocultures, when decomposed in the ground, create healthy topsoil and retain moisture for the next generation of smaller plants and animals to survive. In fact, I doubt even the worst of China's early attempts are as bad as their previous state. The goal should be to increase biodiversity, biomass and the accumulation of organic matter. Even 1 out of 3 is better than nothing.
Couldn't agree more with you bruh.......The tone here is so negative. It's like they are hell bent on demonising china while just making random RUclips videos. It's Just another channel trying to get Anti china subs and be successful.
Anyone who lived in China for ten years experienced the benefits of China's reforestation, with fewer dust storms and better air quality. The negativity TONE of the Western against China just so boring
Was it a good idea? That’s just an idiotic question. It wasn’t something China could choose to ignore. It was an existential threat. Whether they had the best solution or not, they had to act before it was too late. Sure, they made mistakes, but their initial attempt earned them the time to refine their solution, and the original solution wasn’t catastrophic enough to deter future improvements. The key here is to stop desert from expanding as fast as before. Funny how the anti-china crowd piled in on this supposed “failure,” like they are some kind of experts. They would have liked to see china do nothing about the desert and to subsequently see chinese suffer.
Some of the area which you may not know is quite bad and in some ways literally a desert. Very few species even grow there. People that are setting up these projects are planting 20 types of trees and shrubs. Taking care of them after planting is also another thing, survival rate in some projects are 95%. What you have seen is one study of many created by Chinese. Most wide spaced mono-specific tree plantations develop understories of local shade tolerant plants over time. Any local birds able to eat the seeds or foliage of the plantation trees will import other seed types in their poop. Beijing saw 63.0% fewer sandstorms per year compared to the period before. The fundamental reason for desertification is the local population exceeds the capacity of the environment. Smart arrangement and control of population have to play its part in preventing desertification other than the Forest Program. A scientific selection of vegetation is also important but again it by nature requires a compromise in economic benefits and it is just impossible to let the Chinese government pay all the cost. The Chinese government is working on this problem and there is still a long way to go for the Forest Program to work in a sustainable way and hope it will eventually work. Preventing the desert from expanding is certainly better than doing absolutely nothing. No other project has been as large as well. And these project has seen real improvements experienced by people. The gobi desert expanded and should be stopped and shrunk. Perhaps you lack depth like many westerners on what China is actually doing. There are numerous Chinese paper that are NOT in English. Having trees is better than a expanding desert that covers everything else. Rows of grass and local tree are planted in addition to drought resistant shrubs, resistant trees such as popular. Seeds are scattered from planes as well in China. Professionals are also part of the program. Issues with "monoculture" also exists in US and Australia 4:46 Let's take a look over a longer time period so we have more context. Beijing saw 63.0% fewer sandstorms per year compared to the period before compared to 1979. On December 5, 2017, the Saihanba Afforestation Community won the honor of Champions of the Earth in the category of Inspiration and Action due to its efforts to transform degraded land into a lush paradise, the highest environmental honor provided by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Thank you, I don't understand this hubris that always seems to believe non-western countries are full of idiots bumbling around. Is it resentment at being kicked out of their former colonies/subjects or something else, something more to do with racism?
Yes, you are right. The true aim is making things better for people and China is doing that for people living around the Gobi desert and fast. Mono cultures work for crops, they have advantages. It's not a silly thing to work on that assumption for forests too. The Chinese also manage flooding and pin down sand with straw and mats. Seems like a weak point on such a successful project. Still likes the video though, just nitpicking
Yes, you are right, but the main criticism, analysis and precautionary message of this video was biodiversity the preservation of autochtonous species, not simply of native plants, but the wide variety of animals that have established specific niches in the habitats created by said plants. It is a tough battle to beat with sacrifices, but ecological disasters rarely help humans.
Love this video lol. Was interested in the title and now Im more than impressed that this is a company for reforestation with so much knowledge it should literally have taken on this project and theyd be done by now.
This guy doesn't know much about China's efforts. They're doing a heck of a lot more than a monoculture of non-native trees. They're holding down the sand with straw patchwork patterns. They're subsidizing new agriculture. They're planting shrubs. They've done terracing and sand-to-soil mixtures. The 15% survival rate mentioned isn't bad, it's good. This is the Taklamakan desert. Try doing your research before making a video.
A textbook example of someone discussing agriculture and not working in it for a single day. Farmers get bad harvests all the damn time and the only way to get the result is enduring it and keep working. Same stuff with reforestation. Lack of water and nutrients in the soil isn't really an issue. There is just enough water in the soil and air for specific plants. Do you see much rain in the desert? No, the rain falls over FORESTS. The additional water comes from the rain, then water excess forms ponds, lakes, underground deposits and streams. Nutrients will not apper if there is no organic. About 15 years ago I just dumped a bunch of sand over rocks - now vegetation took over it and you can hardly tell it was sand. The only tricky part is nitrates. Naturally they come to forest from carnivores eating herbivores and excreting nitrate-rich poop. That is how nitrates are distributed in the forest and it takes a lot of time. So you see many such animals in the desert? As for monoculture dying. So what? After it's dead you can replant the same culture in a much better conditions, or plant a mix of dominant monoculture and other plants. Monoculture IS steadily replaced by a variety of plants artificially or naturally over time. You can't just rush it
I think 15% is actually quite a lot. think about how many trees die in nature. statistically, every tree only has a bit more than one descendant that grows to full age, now think about how many seeds they produce every year
covering 10% of the 2nd biggest country is a huge success . Sure there are problems but NASA images show that overall it's been the most successful afforestation project ever conducted just by area that is now self sustainable forest and with an overall forest increase of almost 200%. Many huge countries like America or Russia are on the other side loosing much of their forests. And of the big projects to counter carbon emission and desertification only India and China managed to take measures which have been very close to expectations. I hope that US and Russia will also try their best. Especially the US has many super effective measures and projects but unfortunately this are very small areas and overall they still loose more forest than they regrow or had an increase of almost 3% of forest area compared to 1991 depending on the source. Russia on the other hand looses forest at a massive rate and it's very concerning not only for them but also for the world. And the Rainforest in Brazil... well let's not talk about that
It is so ironic that the west accuses China consumes too many meats, emits too many CO2, and they said these can lead to the deforestation in Amazon, while blame the efforts China made on bringing the green back at desertion area and decarbonation. All far as I can see China is one the few countries who really cares and take action on things related to the future of the planet, while the west can only contribute politicians like Greta Thunberg who show they really care but actually just use this topic to get tickets
What would happen if you seeded these forests withsome trees which belong in that climate? in that way new trees will grow while the dying trees will provide nesting places for birds, and habitat and foods for insects which will be eaten, a transitional ecosystem might be interesting.
What could be done with these forests is a mix of thinning and additional planting with native species. That would go a long way in improving their health.
I believe if China aimed smaller and nurtured small gains in amount of forested lands it would serve them better. Forests have to be sustained with human intervention (in unnatural environments) long enough for mosses, mushrooms, animal droppings, and a water table to establish an appropriate medium and culture for long term healthy ecosystems and forests. Much love from the states ❤ ❤ ❤!
this video is very badly research, if you want to know how successful the project is, check out NASA's analysis which rate China as the most successful program in the world based on data collected from space.
Kudos to the China government for this massive effort of reforestation, collecting lessons learned, and adjusting their strategy quickly. When it comes to these kind of large project with no immediate returns, China does have an advantage over normal free-market-driven economy.
@@kiddhkane you know what, sometimes I think it’s actually better off for Chinese netizens to stay inside their wall cuz I’m sick and tired of seeing idiots like you all over the place:) Wait-but who’s actually inside a wall?
Are the Chinese now planning to replant native grasses? The grasslands are also an important part the environment and can be planted adjacent to replanted forests. I applaud the efforts of the Chinese government and I would like to see similar projects around the world.
How dare they to do anything to stop desert ! Only 15% survival rate for tree planted on a desert ! That is less that 10 billion trees ! Wait, that's not that bad ...
If you compare it to managing a fish tank, you can spot several relatable issue. Just like you can't just plant trees in desert expecting it to work like forest, you can't just toss in water and fish into fish tank expecting the fish tank to be the same environment the fish would live in wild. You will learn more and more about the issue and lacks in artificial attempt, then comes to appreciate how amazing the balance of nature comes to be.
Not that I'm one of those people who is severely worried about the environment, but why does anyone care what the world bank thinks about the forest in China? That would be like asking a plumber what he thinks the rotation of the planets are going to do to the Earth.
Because China bad, and poor countries should remain beholden to the West's interests instead of partnering up with uppity upstarts like the Chinese. Cue a video about China involvement in Africa in this very channel in the coming weeks/months.
“Because China bad”? Did you even watch the video? Also if you want a video about Chinese involvement in Africa you can check out our video on Elephants made a few weeks ago. There you will see we criticise any western country as much as we would criticise China.
@@MossyEarth I'm not in disagreement with China being the mother of many environmental woes, but I thought it queer that the world bank should comment on China's involvement on Environmentalism. That is like asking an actor what they think about a politics. Not exactly their field of study. Now if someone in the environmental field made a comment about China's involvement in desert and forests, I don't know, someone with some kind of authority, that would be taken much more seriously.
OMG! China had beat back the desert and reclaimed the land for forest, returning the land statue back to what it was around 1000 years ago!! How dare them!! This is horrible~~~
If the goal of the great green wall was reducing emissions, why is creating monocultures wrong? Sure, it may not be as healthy, but they can be logged and replanted as needed. Many of the faster growing trees are harvestable after only couple of years. They do store carbon dioxide, if used in construction often for decades. Why do you need biodiversity anyway?
if a certain disease or insect that preys on the type of tree planted in the monoculture finds its way into the forest then it could have devastating consequences, most of the work done of planting would be destroyed in short time. i believe this exact thing happened in the great green wall too where many trees were destroyed. biodiversity in forests slow down or completely stop these kind of insects or diseases
It's not to reduce emission. Emission wasn't a problem back then (or rather, it's not even a thing) when the project started. It's to stop the desert eating up the farming land, and create a wall to prevent sandstorm in the city. In fact, all these targets had been a success.
@@PaulCoxC how do we know if it is or not intentional? its like asian hate crime offender arguing he is not racist. its also quite often than not, some media will purposely using wrong numbers to fit their narratives, and post a very small apology in the corner after exposed.
I don't think you are smarter than the group of scientists and engineers who are in charge of China... when you can point the mistake, how couldn't they neglect? How the project was started? How they chose the trees? How they evaluated the local ecosystem? How they balanced between budget and efficiency? How many ecologists and other experts were involved in? How many historical examples from other countries were studied again and again? How many days and nights they spent on studying the local geography and soil? How they tracked the growth of plants every year? Some people only speak, some people only take action.
I worked in a mining operation for over 35 years, part of the reclaim effort was restoring with the indigenous flora, fauna trees etc. not imports. Collecting the seeds of what grew there originally, and regrowing in a huge greenhouse and replanting. That sort of took care of the disease and acclimatization issues. The indigenous insects, birds and animals etc. could easily adapt. They are part of the natural vegetation regenerative process. Regreening a desert may present a different set of problems, but I always wondered if a sufficiently large area of trees were planted, would it change the local weather? Roots hold moisture in the soil, leaves release moisture into the atmosphere etc.? Causing more local rain etc.?
Some deserts formed thousand years ago and some formed 300 years ago because of human activities. What Chinese doing is reclaim the lands from these non-natural deserts.
Yes, monocultures are a bad idea, but done on this scale, it sets up a soil and water recovery which allows native species and biodiversity to come back into areas lost to desertification. The quick-growing varieties may fail and die off, but not before other species can naturally gain a foothold back in their past ranges. Slow-growing varieties would never provide such a chance.
For those who wonder or doubt. MuUs Desert: 39° 38′ 0″ N, 109° 0′ 0″ E Kubuqi Desert: 40° 32' 0 "N, 108° 06 '0" E Google Earth isn't controlled by CCP. While some country is violating the Kyoto Protocol and accusing China on carbon emission at the same time, China is bringing into desserts greens instead of wars.
Still a lot of deforestation happening in the west as well.. The issue with this project is its implementation. Planting monocultures has been terrible for biodiversity and ultimately not as efficient to hold back the Gobi desert. In the west the same mistake is being done in many places but we hope that videos such as this one can bring some awareness to the problem..
Maybe we need to research and do a video about that. None of these projects are simple and the sahara also has many types of project. However, any green wall projects to stop the expansion of the desert are generally a good idea if they are well implemented. - Cheers, Duarte
You basically saying monoculture is not good so therefor its better to leave the dessert as it is and let it keep expanding. What a joke. Very few plant species can withstand extreme desert environment, and among those few they need to pick the one with the highest survivability with minimum to no human intervention. Then they must also consider the growth rate, organic material produced per year, and shade it provide to the soil. All these lay the foundation for a sustainable healthy forest in the future. Diversity can be introduce in the future when the environment is stable enough for other species to grow. Insisting on growing plant diversity from the very start will only a waste of effort and money. It's understandable of your ignorant since you make a documentary about something without even going and experiencing yourself what really happened there.
Hopefully the reports coming out of China are correct and they've changed their approach, planting monocultures for the sake of logging gives the illusion of doing the right thing while only worsening the problems facing our planet. They do still need the wood for construction, and it's admittedly a really tough balance to strike, but if they put in enough thought and care I'm sure they can do it right!
I think you explained this really well Tom. Very nuanced video! Lets hope China does change their approach in a meaningful way.
I guess this another attempt to turn a good thing in china into a bad thing. The important thing is the desertland is not a desert anymore. The hard part is already done, turning desert sand into soil, so much easier to plant other trees/plants.
@@rap3208 No, this is an attempt at a balanced, unbiased look at a topic that few people were taking a level-headed approach to. Like any nation, China makes mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn, which is why they need to be talked about.
They've changed up their approach in recent years, which is why we talk about and commend them for that towards the end, but taking lessons from early mistakes is important for moving forward and not repeating them in other projects.
The fact that we've been accused of Chinese propaganda and Anti-Chinese propaganda alike is ridiculous, and I assure you we couldn't care less about whatever geopolitics come with this topic. I mean come on, most of the quoted statistics and negatives in this video came directly from Chinese scientists and the Chinese Academy of Forestry. Like those academics, we just want to do our part to reverse the damage done to the world by humanity and restore what nature we can.
种树是真的，但也犯过错误。比如，种下的树太单一，且易燃，我们得多一些品种，草原中有矿厂，这些地方生态环境脆弱，他们还违反法律规定，政府部门打击了一些。因为金钱总有漏网之鱼，这是我但心的。
This website used 20 years old report for self-promotion... 20 years in China is like 50 years elsewhere
Although now its obvious that a giant monoculture is bad, i imagine the science wasn't as fully proven back when the plan was first created, and the fast growth was more important since the desert expansion back then was faster. It is good to see them adjusting their approach. Luckily in places like africa, they are pushing forward with native species
Absolutely, the main purpose for this video was to relay the lessons from their early mistakes rather than condemn them for it, everything is clearer in retrospect after all. Balancing the needs of nature and China's population is an incredibly complex problem, just like it is worldwide, but recent reports seem to suggest they're closer to striking that balance now. The important thing from here is for other projects to take these past lessons into account and start off stronger! - Tom
yeah, many projects were undertaken by individuals or groups of regular people who may not necessarily have the access to research, resources, or other necessary means of engineering a biologically effective forest from literally nothing. The efforts could only be described by "heroic" yet we need the involvement of the entire society to make the change significant and long lasting
We've come a long way with tree planting science and your comment is spot on. Japan actually did the same thing and most of the newly planted Japanese forestry is monoculture. But I'm sure both China and Japan will come up with a way to address this issue.
Probably ideology and logistics rather than science: foresters, agriculturalists, and botanists have understood woodland health for many decades, but this is the same nation that decided to kill all the field sparrows and ended up with locusts rather than reduced grain loss.
been known for decades
I once spent 5 years in Xi'an, Shaanxi province during college years and I volunteered several times in Maowusu desert in Yulin, in the northwest of China to plant trees 🌿. I could tell you that what you said about diverting rivers to desert for tree planting is the only way we deal with desertification is totally false.
We adapt the mingle forest planting techniques to tackle the desertification, which means there is a mixture of phycophyta plants, frutex plants and trees in the desert, not just trees. The order of planting these vegetations is carefully selected.
You should know that the desert climate means that the water will be very quickly vaporized, so without soil to retain water, the plants, especially trees can't get enough water and will eventually die. So you can't just bluntly planting trees in the desert. Even if you drag an iceberg in the desert they will still die. So the first priority is to modify the desert and gives it the ability to retain water.
The first step would be to put straws in the desert and weave these straws into little checkboxes and fixate these checkboxes in the sand to form a layout of chessboard. These chessboards of straws would help lock down the sands. Then the workers choose from phycophyta plants (e.g. algae), or herbaceous plants (e.g. grass) as per the environment of the desert to plant in these straw checkboxes. When these plants start to stretch their roots in the sand, the water will start to be retained under the surface of the sand. Then the frutex plants (e.g. Sea Buckthorn) could be planted in order to hold more water in a deeper level. At this point, we only have people carry tanks of water into the desert and water these plants every now and then. Because these plants need very minimum amount of water to survive.
When these vegetations thrive and cover the whole desert, there will be a significant improvement in the circulation of water vapor. Thanks to a beign circulation of moisture, the sands could retain more and more water for trees to be planted. The type of trees should also be carefully selected, we can't use those who consume a lot of water, euphrates poplar is the best choice, as it is a indigenous plant in barren lands such as Gobi Desert in China. So the combination of phycophyta, herbaceous, frutex plants and trees will change the ecosystem of the desert gradually, and more trees could be planted to form an oasis. The irrigation relies on the water vapor circulation, water tanks or drainages. When the oasis is stable, we can get the rivers in to irrigate all vegetations, including fruit trees or other cash crops cultivated in the area.
Last but not least, whether it is a propaganda or not, we Chinese succeeded in modifying the deserts. The deserts used to expand 3436km2 per year and now the deserts have retreated 1980km2 per year, which is truly beneficial for the people. There are many research institutes established in the cities near the deserts to study desertification also. This victory belongs to workers, scientists and ordinary citizens who have contributed in this mega project.
This is a scientific fact that China has succeed in anti-desertification, and there is no room for unwarranted accusation since you know nothing about our methods.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for providing information.
It makes you wonder how a RUclipsr got ahold of the information about China's de-desertification efforts at the first place, without actually having set foot in the area, or talking to people who were involved. Of course, the RUclipsr being a Brit, has to highlight the fault, instead of the progress. Typical...
Great insights. Thank you 🙏
反正中国在他们眼里做什么都是错的。。。
I'm surprised and really happy to see that they as a country at least are trying to do something about deforestation. They may not be getting it right but these things usually takes time, effort and a lot of adjustments. It's a step forward in the right direction and I wish more countries would be willing to take this step. A baby first step is never perfect ❤️
Why is that better than just not deforestating them?
Now they just need to take a step in stopping their genocide of minorities, like dismantling the concentration camps.
Such environmental issues are also in Chinese textbooks . We been educated to respect the nature by telling the story of what happened if you killed too many wolves at the age about 9. When the new generation of Chinese people started to play a bigger role in the society,I believe the environmental protection will be great here in China ❤
Not only in China,but in Thailand,Saudi Arabia,India and some of the African counties too do the same to tackle the issues related to deforestation by planting lot of trees..
@I am Fighterman Are they really arrogant just for being hopeful and wanting make a change. Will it help in the grand scheme of things. Nope. Humans destroy faster than we restore because majority are ignorant. They think it's not there problem that the world is dying. It's the future generations who will suffer right. But it affects everyone. One person can't make a change but can you imagine if everyone starts trying to make a change. One mosquito don't even take a drop of blood from you because of how small they are. A swam of mosquitoes can drink a cow until not even a droplet of blood is left. The more people who are aware and try to do better for mother earth, the less earth get destroyed. So many species of animals and plants are rapidly getting extinct due to human irresponsible ways. Many know of this problem, a few want to help but rarely anyone really do.
Dead wood is an important part of a forest too. It creates a habitat for fungi which is very important for rebuilding soils long term, as well as supporting insect life. So we shouldn't see dead trees as a failure.
True as that is, the 'wrong' species of tree will host many fewer species of fungi and bacteria than native species, both in life and in death. Still a lot better than desert obviously.
The symbiosis of trees and fungi is super interesting and we're only just scratching the surface with the research done in recent years.
@@Deckzwabber Fungi are really underrated in general. In elementary school I learned that the trees are the reason that we can live on earth but we didn't learn that the fungi are the reason that the trees can live on earth.
Now I'm very glad when I see some spruce trees in the fall with a happy bunch of fly agaric fruiting below them.
The fungus. It's the fungus.
Not planting the correct species of native trees @rumade won't benefit the fungal ecosystem because every fungus is specific to the tree species it eats.... duh!!!
@@talleyphillippe-mclain2040 there are many cosmopolitan species of fungi that prosper in temperate and northern forests across the world
Your "duh" was rude and unnecessary
I love the fact that China tried, learned from this, and tried again with the lessons they learned, while other nations on earth still haven’t tried the first time at such a scale. Say what you want about them but if there is a more effective solution to a problem, as soon as they learn of it they always take the chance to implement it.
There are other reasons why other countries dont try, unsuitable locations, already have its own native woodland, money... etc etc...
lol not really
Europe has seen bigger and healthier reforestation over the last 2 centuries
China just loves mass production dont they
@@Okxyd lies lmao. China turned an entire desert into a forest while mayos destroy forests every year
Just want to say as a Chinese who live in the northern area, I still remember how often the sand storms were 15 yrs ago when it came, sky turned yellow and wind filled with sand, I had difficulty walking to school. But now, we hardly have any sand storms anymore. Stopping deforestation is only the first step, rebuilding the whole ecosystem would be the eventual goal, but given China is still a developing country and lacks a lot of resources when these trees were planted. But I believe we will eventually make it.
Exactly!
Hmmmmmmmmmmm
You're sus
Wow that's amazing 👏
All thanks to the ingenuity of the Chinaese and the amazing bearoucratic powers of the CCP 🇨🇳
At least China is trying something, far too many Western countries are doing fuck all except arguing about what the “perfect” solution should be.
Should you even be on RUclips if you're chinese ?
For me the most relevant comparison is the baseline of doing nothing: Even planting monocultures that dont create new habitat seems better than letting the desert take over. There was only one argument why it could detremental. So overall it seems really worth the try with the goal to continuosly learn and improve upon it.
The opportunity costs are immense though. If you spend thousands of man hours and the associated money and ressources on a project that only doesn't entirely fail 15% of the time, it's a huge waste if you could instead do it in a way that pushes the success rate up to maybe 50% or even more.
@@dingus_doofus Hindsight is always 20/20.
@@dingus_doofus But the thing is: Doing this project with a success rate of 15% made the success rate of the second project increase.
The areas where monocultures were planted were not as habitable as they are now thank to this "failed project.
These trees that died provided shade and pulled water up from deep in the ground (where shrubs, bushes, and YOUNG TREES cannot reach). They are decomposing and providing nutrients to the surface level soil. The idea that the monoculture trees use a lot of water is half true, trees use a lot of water, BUT they also provide shade which prevents evaporation via the sun beaming on the land. The amount of water these trees use was severely exaggerated.
These monocultures helped set up the land to be more forgiving, and now the native trees that are planted will have a higher likelihood of setting root.
To use your example, it's basically a choice between doing Project 1 with a 30% success rate, or doing Project 2 with 15% success rate first to then raise Project 1's success to 50%+.
@@jadecoolness101 Hmm I see. Fair point! THen let's see how it progresses moving forward.
@@dingus_doofus plus as a environment major student，the process of stop desertification is always about soil not the survival rate of the trees we plant at first place，even the dead trees root will hold water，soil. which means there will be a much higher survival possibilities for future plants.
I grew up in Chang Bai Mountain, close to the North Korean border. When I was a kid during the 90s, I remember pretty clearly all forest areas, including trees and animals were protected by criminal laws and enforced by the forestry bureau (they even have armed forces), you can't even spark a fire during the fall/winter season in those areas.
反中是政治正确，他们怎么都能挑出刺来。虚伪傲慢双标的西方人们
environmental engineering is so terribly difficult and so crucially important at the same time. hopefully in the next couple hundred years we would have learned enough from these attempts to understand how to more effectively improve our environment.
definitely stolen
I def see u in the light switch song cover video.
Report the comment and move on, its a bot
@@orionl7406 It has a point though🤔
@@commentmanilikemdansc8550 someone else had a point and then they stole it
I just appreciate someone is taking action, we can only learn from our mistakes, the data they’ve collected from this will help new organizations
Agreed!
that's what authoritarianism gets you, big steps, good and bad haha
@@dewinmoonl I guess it’s a double edged sword haha, but the way things are in the United States at the moment I would kind of prefer authoritarianism, too much arguing and finger pointing not enough action for the people
@@dewinmoonl As if America isn't authoritarian. If anything it's a schizophrenic authoritarianism that is incapable of long term projects like this.
American has the largest prison population in the world. It has the worst healthcare system in any even slightly comparable nation. How is getting cancer from our shitty food (that has been lobbied extensively to feed us), and subsequently going bankrupt and homeless from medical bills not authoritarian?
The thing with America is that we get to hide behind the free market. The free market is more authoritarian than Xi could dream of, and the best thing about it is that it completely obfuscates responsibility of any individual, or even system of governance. We take it for granted that a medical emergency can bankrupt you. Ask the average Chinese citizen, they'll tell you that's authoritarian.
This, of course is not even mentioning the authoritarianism that American exports throughout the world. America helped the Indonesian government genocide and "disappear" 2 million Indonesian communists in the 70s. The wars in the middle east have resulted in near a million deaths. We carpet bombed Korea destroying all their infrastructure and killing 10-20% of their population. We killed ~2 million Vietnamese civilians. We are currently embargoing Afghanistan, allowing thousands and soon much more to die from starvation. I can go on.
How is that not authoritarian? Take off your blinders.
@@ayoitsyayo “I would prefer the great leader to line the his pockets at the expense of my rights because keeping up with politics of a democracy us too hard for me"
In this project i gently assume that monoculture trees are the most suitable selection to start this project, because they're good at restoring the soil and keeping the water.
In addition, this method has been proved to work in any places in Europe, first invented and tested in Germany.
Dead trees are NOT a bad thing at all, it provides a great environment for fungus to grow, which leads to more biodiversity. When the soil is ready, they will be inserting local vegetation and trees, which they are starting to do in recent years, as some guys said, to make the point clear, if they have started planting local vegetation from the beginning, those plants would have all died! Don't you see, it's hard to plant in sand lol.
Just do not believe everything YT sais, because everyone can be wrong, so does this youtuber. If this project hasn't ended as they've had planned to be, it doesn't means that this is failure, because we're just in the midle of the long run of environmental protection. So without saying who I am referring to (some stupid guy that made me very uncomfortable reading his comments), it is impossible to see great change in less than a decade, if your neurones are still working. You can't come up with the perfect solution when you are doing something that no country has done in the past in such a big scale. And EVERYONE THAT IS NOT DUMB AND BLIND AND THINKS THAT I AM CHINESE PROPAGANDA can clearly see that the situation is getting better and better, this great nation is learning from its mistakes and preparing itself for its next try.
At least this is much better than the countries that are criticizing and doing nothing, if China waited till their "perfect plan 100% success", the desertification would have became more uncontrollable.
Just saying that they wouldn't be able to come up with a better plan without China's tryouts and effort.
And just for some ppl that don't know, politics is war without bleeding, and med ia is a tool for the govnmt.
Just have your own thoughts,
and don't be manipulated by politicians.
It's wrong, not because of turning desert to green, but because it's China. 🤣
Those specific trees, according to the video, were unsustainable in those areas, and actually made the ground drier and prevented grasses and shrubs from groing. Now as my only source for this is this video, that's all I got to go on. It seems they made some big mistakes in the begining, but they are recogmizing and correcting those flaws
You can either see it as some kind of extremely intelligent plan ahead of it's time or as a bad decision that accidentally had consequences that are great for the future(or anything in between).
The important is that efforts are being made to help the planet.
You see, it doesn't matter what you say. It's wrong, it's evil, it's dumb, it's incompetent and it's low quality plain and simply because it's China.
No other reasoning, no other commentary.
China is doubleplusungood and they can't do anything right
"...first invented and tested in Germany." Ah the white man always claiming they invented things first. lol Is there any proof to your claim? Did you look at all civilization? How far back did you look? etc. lol
Wait!
I think the plan was always:
- grow fast growing and dry resistant plants to stop desertification
-> slowly introduce less and less dry resistant plants into the mix
-> keep this up until native plants can grow again/plant them again
-> success
Nope, since the big 3 were planted are used mostly for logging.
Also, those big 3 drain water like a campus chad on a weekend with beer.
@@MalekitGJ most of the water absorbed by the tree goes to its leaf so he was correct. Monoculture was used to plant trees that will be felled after decades but this trees nurture the land. Trees don't magically absorb water into abyss. They are a vessel to avoid evaporation of water. Thats how rainforest was made.
@@markeubertnoblezada5525 "after decades", make it ONE decade or less.
Also, monoculture of fast growing trees tend to kill every plant that is water dependant.
BTW, dude, do you even rainforest? did those zones had enough rainwater drop for humidity to stay high? how much of the time those zones are bathered by the sun? it is close to the ecuator? or does it have a chain of mountains trapping clouds to make it more rainy?
the plan was and always will be: grow fast growing and dry resistant plants to get promotion for the officers
It's really hard to know what's really going on, China lies a lot, but Western media likes to exaggerate China problems a lot, depending on who you follow China is paradise or North Korea
Monoculture is cheap and can cover the most area, there's no "going wrong" with it when you are literally fighting against the desert with nothing. In fact, spamming a monoculture, even if it fails, helps create favourable conditions for the second wave of greening. The problem with many scientists and activists is that they keep demanding for the optimal solutions with zero regards to the actual socio-economical and even geopolitical situation.
Lmao Winnie the Pooh millions dead.
@@AGuy-vq9qp Million dead in the US due to covid, based on what I read.
@@AGuy-vq9qp aaaand what does that have to do with the conversation?
@@foxtail286 Ignore the reddit troll.
@@AGuy-vq9qp you might have made a mistake coming here. This isn't the children's channel.
Have you ever been in China, especially Northwest China? In 1980s and 1990s, I experienced much more and devorstated sand storms in Spring season of each year. After year 2000, I went to Southern China till the year 2008. In the year of the Olympic Game in Beijing, I came to Beijing and lived there since then. I could barely experience sand storms, which made me curious of the reason of this comparison.
Until 2013, I had the opportunity to go back to Northwest by car, and during that 1,200 kilometers drive, I saw the green mountains and plain fields that not exsisted twenty years earlier. This is why I have very different opinion toward this video.
I understand the science matter it included, but if you can also experience the gradually disappear of a desert which I had visited almost every year during Spring tour, you will definitely abstract what you just told.
As a Chinese, I tell you Don't explain anything. These videos are sponsored by Western organizations. If a media is related to politics, you can't get 100% facts from the media. For example, this video implies 15% is very low for the survival rate of the trees. Is it unacceptable? I don't know.
How about 2024?
I'm sorry, but you seem to have misunderstood the point of this video. It's not about how "China bad for doing this" and rather "learn from this", so everyone trying similar projects in the future uses what China has learned to avoid making similar mistakes
I get your point. But atleast they did something to fight dessertification and not just some talks/blabber about how to do environmental protection.
@mayte damage? Be objective, the desertification has stopped. Damage what further?
the planting of monoculture did help changing the landscape and because of that now it can sustain other type of plants.
yeah. this video is definitely missing out this part.
Not every plant can survive in a sand desert. things have to go step by step
@@rickr9435 100%, you could argue that biodiversity only exists because different plants find a niche in (what is initially at least) a monoculture - eg there is an ideal plant for a type of arid marginal environment, then there is an ideal plant for taking advantage of the beneficial climactic impact of that plant, then there is an ideal shade tolerant plant that takes advantage of the low competition forrest floor etc.
This is all precluded by the first monoculture, without this nothing else could exist.
You also have to realise that this is not a project out the goodness of the Chinese governments hearts, I presume they had to compulsory purchase order millions of hectares of land and I do not doubt they are looking for a system that can give them a return on their investment.
Yeah but this is China so everything they do must be bad and to say anything else is evil.
@@rickr9435 Yes but I think the video is saying leave the desert and enhance the deforested areas with biodiverse habitat.
@@kwoltekublai3337 Agreed, but I don't see the Chinese government caring about making a return on their investment. They aren't capitalist, and if they need money they just take it from the giant privatised companies, like they did with tencent.
western always added last word : " and why it went wrong " . Good job
We in Scotland have had reforestation projects that "went wrong" too. China's is either the biggest such or second biggest (Africa's 'green wall') so unsurprisingly any going wrong was on a bigger scale than here. The question is, are lessons learnt and acted on. Hopefully they are.
I totally agree on almost everything you say, exept for one thing - it has been proved many times over, that forests actually help to impruve the water circulation in the area - they save and conserve water, allowing many other plants to profit from this. So yeah - trees don't "drink up all the water" - it's the other way around - they literally bring water even to the arid areas. But everything else is on point. Planting monocultures only is especially bad idea.
Hi! Thank you for your feedback. It is true that bringing back forests will generally increase water retention. However, when those forests are non-native monocultures that were grown without taking into account natural succession this can have the exact opposite effect and dry up the area even further.
Both of you are right.
Any topsoil creating forest helps to conserve water the high shade protecting fern and other undergrowth, and this second step keeps the topsoil moist and rotting.
Certain yellow grasses can do this all on their own under good circumstances. (Retain soil, retain moist +retain droppings= topsoil created)
But an forest that doesn't have any significant undergrowth won't be positive for the water level, lowering the water level up to meters, drying out the topsoil, which lessens rot(topsoil creation) and water retention capability, making it all worse.
Edit : didn't see you there, mossy earth
@@Redicule_research._ridiculous Yes, you are right. I should have taken into account those cases as well, but they kinda slipped out of my mind due to the fact that in my vicinity forests are largely of the first, topsoil creating variety, thats why i was kinda bewildered by the phrase that forests dry out the earth. 😅
@@MossyEarth Is that a problem moss could solve?
@@pluckybellhop66 It is something we can implement in our projects (although we do not try to plant trees in desertified areas), but at scale we are small fish in a big pond and we have no links in China. It does seem to be going better there now :)
I wish desertification was talked about a lot more than it is. I understand it's a slow process but it feels like places such as southern Spain have a lot of potential for growth and co2 reduction, I have seen incredible rainfall, clouds and moisture during the evening/mornings but it all just washes away or burns up by mid day because of miles of barren land.
A few years ago we had a particularly wet winter/spring and the place was green like I'd never seen since buying our apartment. I could be misinformed but it sure feels like a missed opportunity.
Permaculture, things like swales should be taught in schools. Slow down water. It's really that easy. Slow water seeps into the ground, raising the underground water table that builds up over time. Then the native plants come and hold things in more and more and release precipitation and it rains. You still want water to flow but slowly.
Lol who cares about Spain.
We need to focus on places where poor minorities live, in Spain a farmer can just move to the city and find a job there, for a African farmer it is either farm, join the ISIS or die
@@CameronKiesser Local farmers use swales here in Southern Spain as part of their terracing of the hillsides. They know what to do to retain water, and use drip irrigation - unfortunately the local culture regards any plant that isn't profitable as a weed so farmers just spray weed-killer around their trees. They're also planting mango and avocado trees like crazy which need a lot of water, and increasingly ripping out almond and olive trees to do so.
when you realize when northern hemisphere is getting more green
does he know
Nitrogen fixtaing invasive plants with the use of masive herding is very useful to combat desertification first sturdy animals like goats and donkeys. Manure is great for the land.
Then you plant trees.
Sounds a lot like calling sour grape. Things can be improvised but the most important thing is to reforest the desert first, instead of just talking about it, like Mossy Earth or any Western countries.
You don't understand the concept and the method behind China's oasification/reverse desertification. First they have to plant certain type of trees just to secure the top layer of soil. Once the soils are settled, and retain water moisture ratio then they would plant other different species of trees to balance out the ecosystem. It doesn't happen overnight to turn a desert into an oasis. It took China two generations of hard work to get to where they are. You guys only talk about saving the planet, but only do so little to help. Stop complaining and criticizing until you have something better to offer.
They are trash, they can not torlerate others' hard working.
Basically the same thing Reddit do. Call out the others while doing nothing in return.
To criticize is the first step of rectification, especially when the criticism is sound and constructive, so what the hell are you talking about? What do you propose he should do? Stay quiet about it CCP-style until something goes horribly wrong?
@@wisdomleader85 na na na u start bring up ccp thing. Jealousy 🤣🤣🤣 the admin admit they never do desert project. What china had done might not perfect yet but its so much better than having bigger desert and let it get bigger year by year. Its just 40 years right now. Maybe after me and you gone from this earth there will be more bio diversity and less desert on earth. Never stop learn bro
Wow, this burnt bread is so bad, too bad I cant complain about it cus I can't cook
They'll work it out. China has proven to be very creative and adaptable. Miles ahead of New Zealand, where one exotic pine tree species is getting planted at an enormous scale, for 'carbon credits'.
there are a lot of reasons
1. science of ecology and whatnot wasn't as complete as what we have today, but the project started, as you said, in the 70s or 50s even.
2. any forest is better than no forest when the biggest threat is desertification of arable land, when you need to feed 500 million - 1.4 billion people.
3. sandstorms are annoy af. i live near the loess plateau and oh boy, has the sandstorm situation become a lot better in the last 30 years.
4. money was by far the biggest issue china had. it was one of the poorest countries in the world when the project started, so, cheap, quick fixes when budget was tight is what they went for
5. absolutely, as a bio major i agree that retaining the natural, original habitat, and slowly terraform with plenty of research backings is the best way to go. from what i've seen in the last few years around the loess plateau and eastern china, there is definitely STILL a lot of monoculture planting of nonnative trees, but there is also an increase of planting native species and introducing native animals as well. after all, the country needs to feed and satisfy 1.4 billion people, and quick fixes for the poorest, more ignorant times can no longer work in the current circumstance.
Thank you for presenting such a balanced piece of feedback for us. We really appreciate it! We wish other people in this comment sections would be more like you :) - Cheers, Duarte
Any forest is better than no forest!
@@MossyEarth you do realise it takes people a bio major or with equivalent knowledge plus the local knowledge to understand the situation. therefore I would suggest you in the future the video should be more balanced. Becuse this video to me is a little discediting the hard work of the green wall of China.
@@REALSTEELBRO couldn't agree more, bruh.
@@REALSTEELBRO true. Sounded like bashing more than informing. But, hey, how can we talk about China and NOT bash it, right??? (sarcasm)
I appreciate them actually doing something in the first place. Often when large scale projects like this are planned it's just talking and more talking and nothing more happens. We're really good at talking and not actually doing anything nowadays. It's not just about our climate, forests, animals but us people to and how we interact with each other and deal with problems. Instead of fixing a problem we just talk about it and somehow that makes us "feel" good like we're doing something but nothing really happens. It's not denying that we humans have a massively negative impact on this planet and the way we're going is not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. When things do collapse(our society) it's going to be a bad time for everyone involved.
That's the problem with democracy! Every interest group have assholes ...I mean opinions. :) Nothing gets done because of potential lawsuits.
Not an expert, but if you compare the satellite images with 10, 20, 30 years ago you will see how successful the project is.
I think it's important how you define success. We also too often forget that tree lifespans are nothing like human.
Satellite images contain very little information and aren't good as the only source for a conclusion.
From what I can observe we don't have the same satellites...
@Yaming Liu - On the Loess plateau (all the videos are from 2008) but analysis of the photo satellites I don't call it a success : it's mainly agriculture, not forests, in small areas, abundantly watered. Very fragile: Once you stop the watering, it returns to its prime conditions.
I don't deny the HUGE effort of the population who didn't agree in the first place as I remembered. The farmers saw no gain in growing trees ('People don't eat trees!').
With a population growth from 400K to 1.2 million in this area, despite the government one-child policy except for the farmers (which has been loosen in 2013 but that was a good strategy), China is still facing a huge challenge as several old civilizations did.
_It just shows that with large financial and social investments, it is a real challenge for all of us :_ We're all living on the same big spaceship which is Earth, and we are not out of the woods. If we could only stop the (economic - military) wars and *_the idiotic maximizing-profits-system_* we would have greater ressources...
At a point we will have to SHARE (remember the fate of the Obama Care).
Edit: typos
Repent and follow Jesus my friend! Repenting doesn't mean confessing your sins to others, but to stop doing them altogether. Belief in Messiah alone is not enough to get you into heaven - Matthew 7:21-23, John 3:3, John 3:36 (ESV is the best translation for John 3:36). Contemplate how the Roman empire fulfilled the role of the beast from the sea in Revelation 13. Revelation 17 confirms that it is in fact Rome. From this we can conclude that A) Jesus is the Son of God and can predict the future or make it happen, B) The world leaders/nations/governments etc have been conspiring together for the last 3000+ years to accomplish the religion of the Israelites C) History as we know it is fake. You don't really need to speculate though because you can start a relationship with God and have proof. Call on the name of Jesus and pray for Him to intervene in your life. - Revelation 3:20
Revelation 6 1st Seal: White horse = Roman Empire conquering nations under Trajan 98-117 AD & Gospel spreading rapidly. 2nd Seal: Red horse, bloody civil wars with 32 different Emperors, most killed by the sword. 185-284 AD 3rd Seal: Black horse, economic despair from high taxes to pay for wars, farmers stopped growing. 200-250 AD 4th Seal: Pale horse, 1/4th of Romans died from famine, pestilence; at one point 5,000 dying per day. 250-300 AD 5th Seal: Diocletian persecuted Smyrna church era saints for ten years, blood crying out for vengeance. 303-312 AD 6th Seal: Political upheaval in the declining Roman Empire while the leaders battled each other. 313-395 AD
Revelation 7 Sealing of 144,000, the saints, before trumpet war judgments, which led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Revelation 8 1st Trumpet: Alaric and the Goths attacked from the north, the path of hail, and set it on fire. 400-410 AD 2nd Trumpet: Genseric and the Vandals attacked the seas and coastlands, the blood of sailors in water. 425-470 AD 3rd Trumpet: Attila and the Huns scourged the Danube, Rhine & Po rivers area, dead bodies made water bitter. 451 AD 4th Trumpet: Odoacer and the Heruli caused the last Western Emperor (sun), Senate (moon) to lose power. 476 AD With the Western Roman Emperor (restrainer of 2 Thes. 2) removed; the son of perdition Popes took power.
Revelation 9 Two woe judgments against the central 1/3rd and eastern 1/3rd of the Roman Empire. 612-1453 AD 5th Trumpet: Locust & scorpions point to Arabia, the rise of the Muslim army. Islam hides Gospel from Arabs. 612-762 AD 6th Trumpet: Turks released to attack Constantinople with large cannons (fire, smoke, brimstone). 1062-1453 AD
Revelation 10 The little book is the printed Bible, which was needed after the Dark Ages when Scriptures were banned by Popes.
Revelation 11 7th Trumpet: Martin Luther measured Roman Church; found that it’s an apostate church, not part of true temple. The two witnesses are the Scriptures and saints who proclaim the pure Gospel and testify against the antichrist Popes. Papal Church pronounced Christendom dead in 1514 AD. Silence for 3.5 years. Then Luther posted his 95 Thesis, which sparked the Protestant Reformation and brought the witnesses back to life. Millions of Catholics were saved.
Revelation 12 Satan used the Roman Empire to try to wipe out the early Church, Satan was cast down as the Empire collapsed.
Revelation 13 The antichrist beast Popes reigned in power 1,260 years, 538-1798, is the little horn of Daniel 7, son of perdition. The false prophet Jesuit Superior General rose to power from land (earth) of Vatican and has created many deceptions.
Revelation 14 Points to great harvest during the Protestant Reformation & wrath on Catholic countries who obey antichrist Pope.
Revelation 15 Overcoming saints victorious over the beast. Prelude to 7 vials and judgment on those who support Papal Rome.
Revelation 16 1st Vial: The foul sore of atheism was poured out on Catholic France, leaving them with no hope, led to revolution. 2nd Vial: The French Revolution started in 1793, killed 250,000, as France had obeyed the Pope and killed saints. 3rd Vial: The French Revolution spread to rural areas of France, where Protestants had been killed in river areas. 4th Vial: The bloody Napoleonic wars shed the blood of countries who had revered and obeyed the antichrist Pope. 5th Vial: Judgment on the seat of the beast. Papal States invaded in 1798, Pope imprisoned, removed from power. 6th Vial: The Turks vast domain dried up, they were only left with Turkey. They lost control of Palestine in 1917 AD, Israel became a nation again in 1948
Nah, you guys still failed in their eyes cause whatever forest you guy manage to recreate it's not looking like rainforests in the textbooks 😂
I'm not sure if it is true but I think I heard the reason they are going with monoculture is because they have a tiered system where the first tier is getting fast growing trees in the most airid regions to get a water table established and to get other plants growing just to start up the water cycle. Native species and natural ecosystems will develop with the presence of water.
The other thing China us doing is using PLA (a type of plastic, not the military) nets to create wind barriers so they can first stop the wind from moving sand and allow plants to develop roots.
Honestly even if all of the monoculture trees grow and fall that still provides nutrients for new plants, and shade from the fallen and standing trees to help retain water. They worst thing is to allow the sun to beam down on the soil itself thats how you evaporate the water and prevent new plants from taking root.
That would be quite a long time for that to happen naturally though, trees are extremely long lived. And the monoculture trees suck up nutrients and block out sunlight, preventing the possible growth of native plants
I still respect the fact that they planted so many trees though, it's really cool
@@someyetiwithinternetaccess1253 trees block out sunlight, preventing growth... have you ever been to a jungle?
@@yzy8638 that's native wildlife, which have evolved to coexist with each other
@@someyetiwithinternetaccess1253 coexist to a point where larger tree move away their leave so sunshine reach the btm? Lol
@@yzy8638 competition for sunlight is fierce lmao. Little grows under leaf cover, and most plants are just waiting for a tree to fall so they can claim the sunlight.
This "failure" will at least give some data that can be used to improve their future attempts, beats doing nothing which results in nothing
What a clickbait. The monoculture was on purpose and they picked trees, which can grow everywhere. While growing roots, taking and giving nutrient from and to the ground, the soil gets better and is then ready for different plants.
This video shows once more how misinformed the average blogger is.
Yep. This video is nothing but clickbait scattered with self promotion and a little bit of unrelated facts.
Very good video, one detail though. Some might find it nitpicking, but I think it's a very important detail that changes the weight of the number a lot: 1:11 - 8.6% to 23.3% is an increase of 14.7 points, not percent. 8.6% to 23.3% is in fact a 171% increase. A 14.7% increase would mean it went from 8.6% to just 9.9%.
I replied to a similar comment on here but fair point, I know this wasn't intentional but we should probably have mentioned it in both ways to be clearer
Glad to hear they're taking some lessons into account and planting more diverse native trees
suit up！！！
Congratulations! Please don't stop from planting more trees and turning deserts into forests. DON'T GIVE UP! Never give up!
非常乐意在这里能够听到这么多的意见。防护林工程是实现我们国家土地可持续发展的重要一环，工程启动至今，北方人民生活的环境质量明显改善了。
你沒發現人家怎麼帶節奏的嗎？
人家最後的結論是中國人做什麼都是錯的。
世界公認的植樹造林保護地球都能被洗成錯誤。
洋人啊~
@@tigerwild1164 西人永远都是这样啦，200多来为了工业发展持续破坏环境，等自己完成了资本累积，就把污染重的产业迁去发展中国家，连各种垃圾也要集装箱运到其他国家去处理，自己享受发展中国家带来的廉价商品与高度工业化带来的便利，转过头又严厉谴责发展中国家在毁坏环境，而对自己百年来更加严重的累积污染闭口不谈。今时今日，发展中国家的人均碳排放也比西人的低得多，而且都是为了让人民吃饱饭穿得暖的产业。环境差，他们说中国污染重都是雾霾；环境好了，他们说植树造林会破坏沙漠生态。
@@tigerwild1164 对呀，这又不是他们的祖国，肯定不盼着中国好~
Argument-by-argument critique part 5
2:34 Here, 18% planted tree survival is criticised as a failure. The overall result of reforestation in China, as mentioned before in the video, is a 15% increase in forest cover. This must indicate some success right, even despite the difficulty of planting at the fringe of a desert?
But what is the general survival rate of planted trees? In Sacramento, California, the survival of planted trees after 5 years is around 80% (Roman et al. 2014, 10.1016), which whould amount to about 50% after 15 years (100% x 0.8^3 = 50%). Should we then say that the Three-North-Shelter forest program is a failure since its survival (18%) is less than half of that of Sacramento? Considering the greater challenge of planting trees on the edge of a growing desert, I think 18% is very good in comparison.
If we go to Rwanda, a country with a climate and relatively dry savannah that still is less challenging than the outskirts of the Gobi desert, 15-year survival rate of planted trees is about the same as for the Green Wall project (13%, extrapolated from 5-year survival, Murekezi et al 2013, DOI: 10.4314/rj.v1i1.4E).
What Mossy Earth is doing here, is taking data that is relatively good in comparison to the global standard, and presenting them as a failure, hoping that the viewer does not have enough background knowledge to reveal the falsehoods.
thank you for providing the context to the data!
Hey now we all know China bashing always gets the views from self righteous western audience!
Anything China does is evil and bad, only west knows how to save the planet!
I remember flying into China for the first time, flying over Manchuria on my way to Beijing. I was shocked at how many trees I could see below. Frankly, I thought all of Manchuria had been grassland. But, nope. Lots and lots of trees. The same held true when flying through southern China. That one surprised me too--how green huge chunks of the country were.
bro，welcome to China ！ I live in henan province,from my own experience of my life, some factories are closed for a week in per month to protect the environment, even china is a developing country. And,the Manchuria is not a geographic word. Manchuria was established after Japan invaded the three northeastern provinces of China without declaring war during World War II, and Manchuria's army was all controlled by Japan - they wanted to split and gradually occupy China in this way.
@@mcy6173 工厂每个月关闭一周吗？确定不是开玩笑吗？去了多少个省和城市从来没听过见过
@@majiko1267 老弟，中国那么大，你没见过的很多
this is why i love enviromental engineering. it's so complex that it's mesmerising
Even the wrong trees fast growing and die fast than native trees. They still add nutrients on top of the sand and provide additional soil for newer growing plants. Additionally, the trees growing with the additional soil provided shield from the sun ray from heating the rocks and sand on the surface of the Earth. You should focus more on greening the Mohave desert so that the heat around the area doesn't dry up the Colorado river.
Argument-by-argument critique part 2
1:23 It is ironic that monoculture projects from the 80s in China are criticized, while mixed planting only got serious attention in Europe from around the 2000s (Lie et al 2018). The video consistently refer to the Green Wall as a monoculture, but it is most places a di-culture with birch and poplar, and many places more species.
2:18 The line of reasoning does not make sense. According to the two-layer hypothesis (see for example Langevelde et al 2010) shrubbery and grasses with shallow root systems do not compete for groundwater with trees. Here Mossy should provide some references to back up his claim.
1- They never said the others were right. They just talked about the biggest scale project and it's consequences since it's much easier to see
2- It does, water is not everything, the bushes that were adapted to the desert may not survive very well with competing vegetation from the outside, new trees growing or lack of sunlight
1:08 actually according to those numbers, that’s *about* a 300% increase.
its not a short term project by any means. Those 15% of trees that survived gets its seeds replanted, and then 60% survive, so on so forth
Turning a vast desert to forest is definetely difficult and no one has ever done that.
There will be many mistake and wrong approch be applied, but I do wish it can success.
If it sucess, its experience will help human to fight against global warming.
Even if you ignore Global Warming thats a beneficial project. Especially the Sahara is rapidly expanding and threatening milliond of people and their way of life. With the Lessons learned they can halt and maybe even reverse the growth.
It might even help Brazil, since the forests they cut down dont grow back on their own
People in West just criticise and dont do anything proactive. At least the Chinese are doing something positive..
Anyone can be a backseat driver. But you have no idea the amount of dedication put into the project by ordinary Chinese ppl. It is a remarkable achievement nonetheless. Projects of similar scale or success hasn't been done in the US for decades, not since roosevelt.
Well, you say the tried really hard, and that's all that matters.
最开始的防沙林可能是单一树种，而且即使有各种各样的缺陷，防沙的单一目标也非常重要而且成功减少了沙尘暴。
但是你视频里面的很多批评，其实是基于一个不存在的靶子。我很喜欢中国西北的风景，所以我很多次自驾或者骑摩托到内蒙古、宁夏、青海、甘肃、西藏、新疆等一些地方旅游。从中国东部到西部的路上，你可以看到非常明显的植被和生态、地貌变化，而且可以很容易的在居住区或者道路沿线看到一些植树造林或者防沙治沙工程。
你不需要是一个植物学或者生态学专家，只要你稍微有一点兴趣或者相关知识，跟当地工人聊聊天，就可以发现从至少十几二十年之前，就有很多相关的研究和实验，以及实践，在不同的地方采用不同的治沙方法，植树、种草、种灌木，甚至种相同的植物也可以采用不同的栽培方式，有时候甚至把沙漠开垦成为葡萄园或者农田，都是一种对抗沙漠的有效方式。如果你跟当地人聊一聊，可以很容易得出当地生态改善的结论。
有时候单纯看外部的研究或者仅仅是新闻分析，能得到的结论恨不准确。而到当地去亲眼看一看，不需要什么专业研究，也可以对此有一个清醒的多的认识。
中国对抗沙漠化的地区，其实是很好的旅游目的地，这些地区基本对外国人也没有旅行限制，等疫情结束以后，对这个问题感兴趣的人，完全可以自己去相关地区旅游一下看看。
对三北防护林的经验教训研究二十年前就有了，那时候教科书里就提到单一树种（我记得是说白皮松）抗病虫害的能力是较低的。后来这二十年很多地区像陕北都采取了退耕还林，生态移民这些自然恢复的办法，效果都不错，陕北现在都绿了。沙漠绿化也更科学了。某些非政府组织老是高高在上的把自己弄得像个老师一样，谁也看不上，但就是不干实事。真正值得佩服的还是那些早早地就深入一线去实地研究，而且能理解当地物质条件限制和老百姓知识欠缺，从而给出实实在在可执行的科学建议的那些国内外专家们。
@@好良言难劝该死鬼 这些人没在沙漠里种活过半棵树，却成天恬着脸高高在上、喋喋不休地充当教师爷，教训别人如何改造沙漠、拯救世界，想想都觉得好笑。西方人忙着在论文里打转、议会里撕逼、媒体上露脸的时候，中国人已经默默无闻干了60多年
As one from China，I wanna thank all the kindness of the viewers that left comments!
You all have your own thinking, not affected by the biased media！
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
It's funny to see English speaking people comment on whether China's reforestation is right or wrong
if nothing else, I have learned today that a fast grown monoculture of trees may be good in combating desertification for one reason, if any at all, and that is that it rapidly covers the top layer of soil in what is essentially wood chips, which may help to combat the loss of water and the wind erosion. but this is a hypothesis in a youtube comments section.
It's so intriguing and even startling to hear someone putting down so overwhelmingly something so positive as treeing and greening against desertification and sandstorm that I can't help wondering the hidden agenda behind it.
exactly
1:05 that is not a 14.7% increase. That is actually a 270% increase. A 14.7% increase on 8.6% would be 9.86%.
All we meant to say was that 14.7 % more of the total landmass of China was covered in trees. Apologies for the poor phrasing, I hope you still got the point we were trying to make :) - Cheers, Duarte
@@MossyEarth a more suitable term would be a "14.7 percentage point increase"
These are the POSITIVE THINGS THAT HAPPEN ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼
Very well researched! As someone that helped in a reforestation project, can confirm the tree planting practices were questionable until recently.
Worth noting that it's not just the illegal loggers, some county governments even log the very trees they planted 😂 There was a case where the Dunhang govt. let people turn part of the Green Wall into vineyards! I believe this particular incident pushed national govt. to form the new forestry regulation.
And yeah I witnessed the sandstorm situation imrpove. If you lived in Tianjin during the spring 7~8 yrs ago, you cannot open the window for an hour without dust accumulating ALL OVER your furniture. Thankfully this is no longer the case!
Well a vineyard is relatively small and is good because it creates jobs for the locals, and it's still better than a desert 🏜
@@BoleDaPole Did you miss the part where the forest was a wall against the dessert? That's like breaking your window to let in more fresh air
Good for a bit, just not when it starts raining.
Repent and follow Jesus my friend! Repenting doesn't mean confessing your sins to others, but to stop doing them altogether. Belief in Messiah alone is not enough to get you into heaven - Matthew 7:21-23, John 3:3, John 3:36 (ESV is the best translation for John 3:36). Contemplate how the Roman empire fulfilled the role of the beast from the sea in Revelation 13. Revelation 17 confirms that it is in fact Rome. From this we can conclude that A) Jesus is the Son of God and can predict the future or make it happen, B) The world leaders/nations/governments etc have been conspiring together for the last 3000+ years to accomplish the religion of the Israelites C) History as we know it is fake. You don't really need to speculate though because you can start a relationship with God and have proof. Call on the name of Jesus and pray for Him to intervene in your life. - Revelation 3:20
Revelation 6 1st Seal: White horse = Roman Empire conquering nations under Trajan 98-117 AD & Gospel spreading rapidly. 2nd Seal: Red horse, bloody civil wars with 32 different Emperors, most killed by the sword. 185-284 AD 3rd Seal: Black horse, economic despair from high taxes to pay for wars, farmers stopped growing. 200-250 AD 4th Seal: Pale horse, 1/4th of Romans died from famine, pestilence; at one point 5,000 dying per day. 250-300 AD 5th Seal: Diocletian persecuted Smyrna church era saints for ten years, blood crying out for vengeance. 303-312 AD 6th Seal: Political upheaval in the declining Roman Empire while the leaders battled each other. 313-395 AD
Revelation 7 Sealing of 144,000, the saints, before trumpet war judgments, which led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
Revelation 8 1st Trumpet: Alaric and the Goths attacked from the north, the path of hail, and set it on fire. 400-410 AD 2nd Trumpet: Genseric and the Vandals attacked the seas and coastlands, the blood of sailors in water. 425-470 AD 3rd Trumpet: Attila and the Huns scourged the Danube, Rhine & Po rivers area, dead bodies made water bitter. 451 AD 4th Trumpet: Odoacer and the Heruli caused the last Western Emperor (sun), Senate (moon) to lose power. 476 AD With the Western Roman Emperor (restrainer of 2 Thes. 2) removed; the son of perdition Popes took power.
Revelation 9 Two woe judgments against the central 1/3rd and eastern 1/3rd of the Roman Empire. 612-1453 AD 5th Trumpet: Locust & scorpions point to Arabia, the rise of the Muslim army. Islam hides Gospel from Arabs. 612-762 AD 6th Trumpet: Turks released to attack Constantinople with large cannons (fire, smoke, brimstone). 1062-1453 AD
Revelation 10 The little book is the printed Bible, which was needed after the Dark Ages when Scriptures were banned by Popes.
Revelation 11 7th Trumpet: Martin Luther measured Roman Church; found that it’s an apostate church, not part of true temple. The two witnesses are the Scriptures and saints who proclaim the pure Gospel and testify against the antichrist Popes. Papal Church pronounced Christendom dead in 1514 AD. Silence for 3.5 years. Then Luther posted his 95 Thesis, which sparked the Protestant Reformation and brought the witnesses back to life. Millions of Catholics were saved.
Revelation 12 Satan used the Roman Empire to try to wipe out the early Church, Satan was cast down as the Empire collapsed.
Revelation 13 The antichrist beast Popes reigned in power 1,260 years, 538-1798, is the little horn of Daniel 7, son of perdition. The false prophet Jesuit Superior General rose to power from land (earth) of Vatican and has created many deceptions.
Revelation 14 Points to great harvest during the Protestant Reformation & wrath on Catholic countries who obey antichrist Pope.
Revelation 15 Overcoming saints victorious over the beast. Prelude to 7 vials and judgment on those who support Papal Rome.
Revelation 16 1st Vial: The foul sore of atheism was poured out on Catholic France, leaving them with no hope, led to revolution. 2nd Vial: The French Revolution started in 1793, killed 250,000, as France had obeyed the Pope and killed saints. 3rd Vial: The French Revolution spread to rural areas of France, where Protestants had been killed in river areas. 4th Vial: The bloody Napoleonic wars shed the blood of countries who had revered and obeyed the antichrist Pope. 5th Vial: Judgment on the seat of the beast. Papal States invaded in 1798, Pope imprisoned, removed from power. 6th Vial: The Turks vast domain dried up, they were only left with Turkey. They lost control of Palestine in 1917 AD, Israel became a nation again in 1948
2:32 15% of planted trees surviving is not a bad statistic given the scale and through that resulting lack of care and protection for the individual sapling.
Here in germany you usually plant 3 saplings for every plant tree, so a success rate of 33% and that is with fences and in rich soil.
So I would say that 15% to stop a desert is pretty good, however if they didn't plan with those losses than it is ofcourse a problem
I believe its more 15% of forests, not necessarily 15% survival rate in each forest. Meaning some survive but so many are a total failure.
@@MossyEarth Source? Just "I believe" can't be an argument.
To all the backyard garden experts here, just so you know, in your country no matter how much effort you put up you can't even do 1/20th of the work the Chinese has done over there.
Regrettably these issues are often at an impasse with locals who know the land and green bureaucrats who think they know better.
We've had a "forestry expert" (city guy that went straight from high school to university) lecture us about "preserving these old growth forests" while unwittingly standing on a bark dump from a previous logging site.
The response when this was pointed out was something to the effect of "shut up you stupid rural peasants, who has the diploma here?".
Sadly hubris like that is an issue in all fields.
@wish . Moral does not matter to their works you just simply cope.
As though all engineers have no morals. They are just more rational and logical and analytically
Not really
The locals should shut up because it was them who caused the expansion of desert in the first place!
I remember that several years ago there was news that a private grape farmland secretly cut down the ecological newly planted trees to steal more land to grow grapes (grapes absorb much more water than other plants), Chinese people criticized fiercely on the Internet, almost everyone around me was annoyed at that time. Many individuals checked the satellite map to seek for evidence. China not only plant trees, the most important contribution of the large-scale project is to make everyone realize the beauty and importance of greenland, now when we buy a house, the green rate of community has become an important index.
15 % of the trees that they planted in desert or half-desert survived? Thats a pretty good success. Its a desert, what did you expect?
Thats a terrible number tbh
Most reforedtation Projects on desersts went better (Israel, Spain, some in UAE)
I think the goal is not to plant in the desert at all but do so simply in the areas the desert is expanding. Then make sure you only use a mix of native species so you do not upset the balance in these ecosystems.
@@MossyEarth its funny that human took so many lands, built cities and roads made the world that inhabit and caused extinction the so mana=y species. and now you care few species in desert.lol
@@MossyEarth Said by people live in wealthy countries that don't have much desertification problem and don't have to take care of 1.4 billion people! What a easy solution!
the hardest part is not turning desert green but rather keeping them green without human intervention afterwards
From MVP to final product. Giant and complex project like this is impossible to be done right in one go. There’s a lot of learning when doing the project. The good thing is that the project still going on and keeps improving. A lot of learnings can benefit other countries and organisations from making the same mistakes.
This is a lot of negative feedback to China's very ambitious project, which has improved greatly over time. The end of the video gives them some credit, but I don't like the overall tone of basically saying 'no' to China's reforestation. I think they deserve massive credit for their project. They are doing and have done WAY more than the US has, and I think we should absolutely learn from and be inspired by them. Instead of the negative tone, I wish this video simply focused on what worked and highlighted the lessons learned, such as avoiding monocultures. For example, even monocultures, when decomposed in the ground, create healthy topsoil and retain moisture for the next generation of smaller plants and animals to survive. In fact, I doubt even the worst of China's early attempts are as bad as their previous state. The goal should be to increase biodiversity, biomass and the accumulation of organic matter. Even 1 out of 3 is better than nothing.
Couldn't agree more with you bruh.......The tone here is so negative.
It's like they are hell bent on demonising china while just making random RUclips videos.
It's Just another channel trying to get Anti china subs and be successful.
Anyone who lived in China for ten years experienced the benefits of China's reforestation, with fewer dust storms and better air quality. The negativity TONE of the Western against China just so boring
Was it a good idea?
That’s just an idiotic question. It wasn’t something China could choose to ignore. It was an existential threat. Whether they had the best solution or not, they had to act before it was too late. Sure, they made mistakes, but their initial attempt earned them the time to refine their solution, and the original solution wasn’t catastrophic enough to deter future improvements. The key here is to stop desert from expanding as fast as before.
Funny how the anti-china crowd piled in on this supposed “failure,” like they are some kind of experts. They would have liked to see china do nothing about the desert and to subsequently see chinese suffer.
Let me tell you a joke: Westerners talk about environmental protection.
Some of the area which you may not know is quite bad and in some ways literally a desert. Very few species even grow there. People that are setting up these projects are planting 20 types of trees and shrubs. Taking care of them after planting is also another thing, survival rate in some projects are 95%.
What you have seen is one study of many created by Chinese.
Most wide spaced mono-specific tree plantations develop understories of local shade tolerant plants over time. Any local birds able to eat the seeds or foliage of the plantation trees will import other seed types in their poop.
Beijing saw 63.0% fewer sandstorms per year compared to the period before.
The fundamental reason for desertification is the local population exceeds the capacity of the environment. Smart arrangement and control of population have to play its part in preventing desertification other than the Forest Program. A scientific selection of vegetation is also important but again it by nature requires a compromise in economic benefits and it is just impossible to let the Chinese government pay all the cost.
The Chinese government is working on this problem and there is still a long way to go for the Forest Program to work in a sustainable way and hope it will eventually work.
Preventing the desert from expanding is certainly better than doing absolutely nothing. No other project has been as large as well. And these project has seen real improvements experienced by people.
The gobi desert expanded and should be stopped and shrunk. Perhaps you lack depth like many westerners on what China is actually doing. There are numerous Chinese paper that are NOT in English. Having trees is better than a expanding desert that covers everything else. Rows of grass and local tree are planted in addition to drought resistant shrubs, resistant trees such as popular. Seeds are scattered from planes as well in China. Professionals are also part of the program.
Issues with "monoculture" also exists in US and Australia
4:46 Let's take a look over a longer time period so we have more context. Beijing saw 63.0% fewer sandstorms per year compared to the period before compared to 1979.
On December 5, 2017, the Saihanba Afforestation Community won the honor of Champions of the Earth in the category of Inspiration and Action due to its efforts to transform degraded land into a lush paradise, the highest environmental honor provided by the United Nations Environment Programme.
very insightful comment, thanks for this!
Thank you, I don't understand this hubris that always seems to believe non-western countries are full of idiots bumbling around. Is it resentment at being kicked out of their former colonies/subjects or something else, something more to do with racism?
Yes, you are right. The true aim is making things better for people and China is doing that for people living around the Gobi desert and fast. Mono cultures work for crops, they have advantages. It's not a silly thing to work on that assumption for forests too. The Chinese also manage flooding and pin down sand with straw and mats. Seems like a weak point on such a successful project. Still likes the video though, just nitpicking
Yes, you are right, but the main criticism, analysis and precautionary message of this video was biodiversity the preservation of autochtonous species, not simply of native plants, but the wide variety of animals that have established specific niches in the habitats created by said plants. It is a tough battle to beat with sacrifices, but ecological disasters rarely help humans.
Love this video lol. Was interested in the title and now Im more than impressed that this is a company for reforestation with so much knowledge it should literally have taken on this project and theyd be done by now.
This guy doesn't know much about China's efforts. They're doing a heck of a lot more than a monoculture of non-native trees. They're holding down the sand with straw patchwork patterns. They're subsidizing new agriculture. They're planting shrubs. They've done terracing and sand-to-soil mixtures. The 15% survival rate mentioned isn't bad, it's good. This is the Taklamakan desert. Try doing your research before making a video.
I'd like to think planting treese from nothing(desert) would be very different than restoring an existing forest environment.
A textbook example of someone discussing agriculture and not working in it for a single day. Farmers get bad harvests all the damn time and the only way to get the result is enduring it and keep working. Same stuff with reforestation.
Lack of water and nutrients in the soil isn't really an issue. There is just enough water in the soil and air for specific plants. Do you see much rain in the desert? No, the rain falls over FORESTS. The additional water comes from the rain, then water excess forms ponds, lakes, underground deposits and streams. Nutrients will not apper if there is no organic. About 15 years ago I just dumped a bunch of sand over rocks - now vegetation took over it and you can hardly tell it was sand. The only tricky part is nitrates. Naturally they come to forest from carnivores eating herbivores and excreting nitrate-rich poop. That is how nitrates are distributed in the forest and it takes a lot of time. So you see many such animals in the desert?
As for monoculture dying. So what? After it's dead you can replant the same culture in a much better conditions, or plant a mix of dominant monoculture and other plants.
Monoculture IS steadily replaced by a variety of plants artificially or naturally over time. You can't just rush it
I think 15% is actually quite a lot. think about how many trees die in nature. statistically, every tree only has a bit more than one descendant that grows to full age, now think about how many seeds they produce every year
covering 10% of the 2nd biggest country is a huge success . Sure there are problems but NASA images show that overall it's been the most successful afforestation project ever conducted just by area that is now self sustainable forest and with an overall forest increase of almost 200%. Many huge countries like America or Russia are on the other side loosing much of their forests. And of the big projects to counter carbon emission and desertification only India and China managed to take measures which have been very close to expectations. I hope that US and Russia will also try their best. Especially the US has many super effective measures and projects but unfortunately this are very small areas and overall they still loose more forest than they regrow or had an increase of almost 3% of forest area compared to 1991 depending on the source. Russia on the other hand looses forest at a massive rate and it's very concerning not only for them but also for the world. And the Rainforest in Brazil... well let's not talk about that
It is so ironic that the west accuses China consumes too many meats, emits too many CO2, and they said these can lead to the deforestation in Amazon, while blame the efforts China made on bringing the green back at desertion area and decarbonation. All far as I can see China is one the few countries who really cares and take action on things related to the future of the planet, while the west can only contribute politicians like Greta Thunberg who show they really care but actually just use this topic to get tickets
Can’t agree more on this
@@poopinfinoopin4907 Thanks for your input, west bot
What would happen if you seeded these forests withsome trees which belong in that climate? in that way new trees will grow while the dying trees will provide nesting places for birds, and habitat and foods for insects which will be eaten, a transitional ecosystem might be interesting.
What could be done with these forests is a mix of thinning and additional planting with native species. That would go a long way in improving their health.
I saw one in Africa along the Sahara desert. They planted hundreds of thousands of trees that surprisingly most died without water.
I appreciate their efforts
I believe if China aimed smaller and nurtured small gains in amount of forested lands it would serve them better. Forests have to be sustained with human intervention (in unnatural environments) long enough for mosses, mushrooms, animal droppings, and a water table to establish an appropriate medium and culture for long term healthy ecosystems and forests. Much love from the states ❤ ❤ ❤!
this video is very badly research, if you want to know how successful the project is, check out NASA's analysis which rate China as the most successful program in the world based on data collected from space.
Tell me how do you define "natural deserts" when a desert can expand?
Kudos to the China government for this massive effort of reforestation, collecting lessons learned, and adjusting their strategy quickly. When it comes to these kind of large project with no immediate returns, China does have an advantage over normal free-market-driven economy.
How much did they pay you for that comment?
@@kiddhkane the country you don't like did something nice so they're probably paying people on YT mirite
@@kiddhkane how much did they pay you for this kind of toxic comments?
@@kiddhkane you know what, sometimes I think it’s actually better off for Chinese netizens to stay inside their wall cuz I’m sick and tired of seeing idiots like you all over the place:) Wait-but who’s actually inside a wall?
Are the Chinese now planning to replant native grasses? The grasslands are also an important part the environment and can be planted adjacent to replanted forests. I applaud the efforts of the Chinese government and I would like to see similar projects around the world.
Capitalist: What did you say? I can‘t hear it
@@francescozhou2030 China is also capitalist they just like to wave the flag of socialism.
@@francescozhou2030 eating tree barks and starving 30 million people to death sounds promising
How dare they to do anything to stop desert !
Only 15% survival rate for tree planted on a desert ! That is less that 10 billion trees !
Wait, that's not that bad ...
If you compare it to managing a fish tank, you can spot several relatable issue.
Just like you can't just plant trees in desert expecting it to work like forest,
you can't just toss in water and fish into fish tank expecting the fish tank to be the same environment the fish would live in wild.
You will learn more and more about the issue and lacks in artificial attempt, then comes to appreciate how amazing the balance of nature comes to be.
Not that I'm one of those people who is severely worried about the environment, but why does anyone care what the world bank thinks about the forest in China? That would be like asking a plumber what he thinks the rotation of the planets are going to do to the Earth.
Because China bad, and poor countries should remain beholden to the West's interests instead of partnering up with uppity upstarts like the Chinese. Cue a video about China involvement in Africa in this very channel in the coming weeks/months.
“Because China bad”? Did you even watch the video? Also if you want a video about Chinese involvement in Africa you can check out our video on Elephants made a few weeks ago. There you will see we criticise any western country as much as we would criticise China.
@@MossyEarth Oh so you had already done a China-Africa video? 🤣 figures
@@MeidoInHebun You are really selective on which part of my reply you want to hear. Anyways, thank you for the feedback.
@@MossyEarth I'm not in disagreement with China being the mother of many environmental woes, but I thought it queer that the world bank should comment on China's involvement on Environmentalism. That is like asking an actor what they think about a politics. Not exactly their field of study. Now if someone in the environmental field made a comment about China's involvement in desert and forests, I don't know, someone with some kind of authority, that would be taken much more seriously.
Amazing production quality, I bet you get plenty more subs real soon.
OMG! China had beat back the desert and reclaimed the land for forest, returning the land statue back to what it was around 1000 years ago!! How dare them!! This is horrible~~~
Me and all the homies hate monocultures. I one day want to start building a mini-ecosystem in my house
Let's use ecosia 👍🌱🌳🌱🌲. Spread the word to friends and family
If the goal of the great green wall was reducing emissions, why is creating monocultures wrong? Sure, it may not be as healthy, but they can be logged and replanted as needed. Many of the faster growing trees are harvestable after only couple of years. They do store carbon dioxide, if used in construction often for decades. Why do you need biodiversity anyway?
if a certain disease or insect that preys on the type of tree planted in the monoculture finds its way into the forest then it could have devastating consequences, most of the work done of planting would be destroyed in short time. i believe this exact thing happened in the great green wall too where many trees were destroyed. biodiversity in forests slow down or completely stop these kind of insects or diseases
It's not to reduce emission. Emission wasn't a problem back then (or rather, it's not even a thing) when the project started. It's to stop the desert eating up the farming land, and create a wall to prevent sandstorm in the city. In fact, all these targets had been a success.
There is a 171% increase from 8.6% to 23.3%. The way you phrased this made it sound way less impressive.
What do you expect from the west? He didn't even bother to compare projects of the same size.
Yeah, fair point, I know it wasn't intentional but we could have mentioned both to make it clearer
@@PaulCoxC how do we know if it is or not intentional? its like asian hate crime offender arguing he is not racist.
its also quite often than not, some media will purposely using wrong numbers to fit their narratives, and post a very small apology in the corner after exposed.
@@PaulCoxC You could also have used sources more recent than 12 years ago, but we know why you didn't and won't ;)
"How China turned the desert green (and how they can do even better)"
There, corrected the title for you
I don't think you are smarter than the group of scientists and engineers who are in charge of China... when you can point the mistake, how couldn't they neglect? How the project was started? How they chose the trees? How they evaluated the local ecosystem? How they balanced between budget and efficiency? How many ecologists and other experts were involved in? How many historical examples from other countries were studied again and again? How many days and nights they spent on studying the local geography and soil? How they tracked the growth of plants every year? Some people only speak, some people only take action.
I worked in a mining operation for over 35 years, part of the reclaim effort was restoring with the indigenous flora, fauna trees etc. not imports. Collecting the seeds of what grew there originally, and regrowing in a huge greenhouse and replanting. That sort of took care of the disease and acclimatization issues. The indigenous insects, birds and animals etc. could easily adapt. They are part of the natural vegetation regenerative process. Regreening a desert may present a different set of problems, but I always wondered if a sufficiently large area of trees were planted, would it change the local weather? Roots hold moisture in the soil, leaves release moisture into the atmosphere etc.? Causing more local rain etc.?
Talking about China, taking picture of US/EU. This channel is in my block list now.
Sorry we do not have unlimited stock footage. The facts are what matters to us. Sorry to see you go. - Cheers, Duarte
Some deserts formed thousand years ago and some formed 300 years ago because of human activities. What Chinese doing is reclaim the lands from these non-natural deserts.
Yes, monocultures are a bad idea, but done on this scale, it sets up a soil and water recovery which allows native species and biodiversity to come back into areas lost to desertification. The quick-growing varieties may fail and die off, but not before other species can naturally gain a foothold back in their past ranges. Slow-growing varieties would never provide such a chance.
The reccomendation about being skeptical to what we hear in these videoes is unironically one of the most trustworthy things you could say lol
If it was up to you, might as well not do anything at all. Easy to criticize.
Great chanel!! You should have more subscribers.
Working on it! :)
For those who wonder or doubt.
MuUs Desert: 39° 38′ 0″ N, 109° 0′ 0″ E
Kubuqi Desert: 40° 32' 0 "N, 108° 06 '0" E
Google Earth isn't controlled by CCP.
While some country is violating the Kyoto Protocol and accusing China on carbon emission at the same time,
China is bringing into desserts greens instead of wars.
In the west millions hectare wood lands turn onto farmland, to be proud of they say, when poor countries cut trees to survive we get slam, by them
Still a lot of deforestation happening in the west as well.. The issue with this project is its implementation. Planting monocultures has been terrible for biodiversity and ultimately not as efficient to hold back the Gobi desert. In the west the same mistake is being done in many places but we hope that videos such as this one can bring some awareness to the problem..
Western countries mostly have growing forest area
What about what theyre doing in sahara?
Maybe we need to research and do a video about that. None of these projects are simple and the sahara also has many types of project. However, any green wall projects to stop the expansion of the desert are generally a good idea if they are well implemented. - Cheers, Duarte
Interesting enough, in spite of everything, the forest coverage increased dramatically
You basically saying monoculture is not good so therefor its better to leave the dessert as it is and let it keep expanding. What a joke. Very few plant species can withstand extreme desert environment, and among those few they need to pick the one with the highest survivability with minimum to no human intervention. Then they must also consider the growth rate, organic material produced per year, and shade it provide to the soil. All these lay the foundation for a sustainable healthy forest in the future. Diversity can be introduce in the future when the environment is stable enough for other species to grow. Insisting on growing plant diversity from the very start will only a waste of effort and money. It's understandable of your ignorant since you make a documentary about something without even going and experiencing yourself what really happened there.