What changed
2026-07-28 22:28 UTC → 2026-07-28 22:29 UTC ·
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China's Great Green Wall progress and Wall, fire reductions cuts & grassland gains
The By mid‑2026 China’s Three‑North Shelterbelt (Great Green Wall) continues to curb desertification shrink desertified land and expand forest cover across northern China. Updated figures released in July 2026 confirm that roughly cover. Cumulative planting reaches about 66 billion trees have been planted since 1978, lowering Gobi desert cutting the Gobi’s annual expansion from about roughly 10,000 km² per year in the 1980s to roughly about 2,000 km² per year by 2022. After early setbacks with water‑intensive poplars, the program now relies on Early poplar trials were abandoned in favor of native, drought‑resistant shrubs and trees, drought‑tolerant shrubs, reinforcing the straw‑checkerboard method. “straw checkerboard” technique. Grassland restoration also advances, proceeds, with about 70 180 million ha (≈70 % of China's pasture classified as in pasture) rated good or moderate condition moderate, and annual rehabilitation of over 3 million ha of degraded steppe rehabilitated each year under the 14th Five‑Year Plan. The 15th Five‑Year Plan (2026‑2030) will deepen ecosystem governance and management pledges further ecosystem‑governance capacity. A complementary outcome is a sharp decline in forest fire incidents. National data show a 72 % reduction Fire management has improved dramatically. The 1987 “Dragon Black Fire” in forest and agricultural fires between 2003 Heilongjiang burned ~10,000 km², killed 211 people and 2023, with total incidents dropping from roughly 14,000 per year left 50,000 homeless – the worst in three centuries. Since the 1980s the country averaged ~14,000 wildfires annually; recorded fires fell to a historic low of 616 in 2021 and 226 in 2023. The 2022, the lowest since systematic statistics began. Non‑agricultural forest fires declined 72 % between 2003‑2023, and the area burned fell has shrunk 92.5 % from 1988 to 2024. Officials since 1988. Experts attribute these gains the decline to extensive reforestation, large‑scale reforestation in southeast and southwest China, stricter fire‑prevention prevention policies, and public‑sector investment in monitoring technology. A joint study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Mississippi State University concluded that effective governance markedly reduces fire frequency under a changing climate. The disparity contrast with Africa's Africa’s Great Green Wall—where progress remains limited—underscores Wall persists; the role African corridor has restored only about four percent of sustained funding, its target area, hampered by funding gaps and management challenges. Experts stress that China’s adaptive planting strategies, techniques and community involvement in large‑scale land‑restoration projects. sustained investment are key to its relative success.