敦煌对抗荒漠化

Dunhuang in northwestern China's Gansu Province is known for its UNESCO World Heritage site, the Mogao Grottoes, or the Thousand Buddha Caves.

In recent years the city has been fighting a battle against desertification.

CRI reporter Natalie Thomas has visited town and its surrounding villages to see what is being done to deal with the situation.

This is Dunhuang, at first glance it looks like your average medium sized Chinese town, but this is a settlement with a unique history. An ancient oasis town lying on the old silk road, Dunhuang was once bustling trading crossroads and today is a city of huge archaeological significance.

However this oasis in the desert now finds itself slowly being claimed back by the surrounding dunes.

Local officials are now fighting to prevent their town from suffering the same fate as similar towns like Loulan to the west which fell to the desert around 1500 years ago.

We spoke to Liu Zhanying, the head of the local forestry Bureau to see what they are doing to deal with the situation.

Historically Dunhuang has always been close to water, the surrounding areas had a lot of pastureland and water resources. During the Han dynasty you could row boats on the Shuluo river. But later on Dunhuang was affected by environmental change as a whole.

The main way we have been fighting desertificaion is by strictly enforcing three policies: forbidding opening up land for farming, forbidding inward migration and forbidding digging wells.

On top of these measures officials have also introduced a triple-pronged attack on desertification, planting trees, encouraging farmers to plant special crops, and raising awareness about environmental protection.

At the moment we are giving villages, giving every rural household a task, work units and cadres in organizations are also being given it. The first is that every single person has to pay a "green fee", the second is that every person has to take part once or twice in tree planting activities

With these measures in place local farmers have began to notice a difference to their environment

These days decertification has more or less been halted, if it hadn't been halted then now in the winter the wind would be blowing every day that means that they've increased the woodland protection belt, so we get less of it. Desertification is happening less, its not as fierce as before

The environment is better than before. In the past there was less land and less trees, these days land and trees have both increased, it's true!

But the challenges are not over yet.

It's still not looking so good. the situation is quite serious. I think firstly we still have to publicize future tree planting and greening activities We also need to put more initiatives in place if we are going to keep the Dunhuang Oasis, and slow down the speed at which the oasis shrinks.

Tomorrow her story on Dunuang's battle against desertification will continue .