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Distribution of grassland in China.

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Grassland near near Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia.

"Grassland: areas of land too high or cold to support anything other than grass, and agriculturally useful only as pastureland for sheep or cattle. Found especially in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xinjiang." (Glossary, Geology Guide China)

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Distribution of desertification affected lands in China.

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The upper reaches of Xiliao He river, Xilinhot Prefecture (X). Intensive agriculture to the north, dunes of accumulated sand on the south banks of the river.

”A report by a US embassy official in May 2001 after a visit to the Xilinhot Prefecture in Inner Mongolia notes that although 97 percent of the region is officially classified as grasslands, a third of the terrain now appears to be desert. The report says the prefecture's livestock population climbed from 2 million in 1977 to 18 million in 2000. A Chinese scientist doing grassland research in the prefecture says that if recent desertification trends continue, Xilinhot Prefecture will be uninhabitable in 15 years.” (Lester Brown)

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Xar Moron He river banks near Wufendi, Inner Mongolia.

“The result is a ‘patchy rash’ of dead areas, rather than easy-to-see expansion of existing deserts. These areas have their good times and bad times as the weather changes. But in general, they are getting bigger and worse-off.” (Chris Hawley)

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A steam train sliding through terraced agricultural fields near Linxie, Inner Mongolia.

”China has very little land that has not been touched by man. The sheer size of the population means that forests and wetlands, grasslands and agricultural fields are stretched beyond the limits of sustainable use.” (Rough Guide to China, Environment)






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Moving haystacks, electricity wires, a one-storey brick farm, a cellphone mast, fences, banners with political slogans, litter - a typical sample of the linear city along road 207A to Xilinhot.

Beyond the Great Wall, the Wild Northwest... Zhangleanqi is just another unhospitable settler’s outpost  – brand new factories on the outskirts, dust blasting through the town’s oversized boulevards. As if Zhangleanqi was dropped off by a couple of trucks just a week ago. These cardboard towns will only get more depressing as I move on north, higher on the Mongolian plateau.

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Distribution of degraded grasslands (dark green) in Mongolia (M) and Inner Mongolia (IM).

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A farm near Sanggin Dalai, Inner Mongolia.

”From the 1980s, Beijing privatized pasture through contracting-out. In Inner Mongolia (IM), fencing has gone up to delineate private land, while in Mongolia (M) one can still ride the 1900 miles from west to east without encountering a single man-made impediment. As a result, Inner Mongolia and Mongolia are distinguishable from the air: up to 40% of Inner Mongolia's grasslands are degraded, less than 10% are in Mongolia. However, the question for Mongolia is how long a free-market economy can continue to coexist with public ownership of the land.”  (Dornod Sumber)

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau defined civilization as when people build fences. A very perceptive observation. And it's true - all civilization is the product of a fenced-in lack of freedom. The Australian Aborigines are the exception, though. They managed to maintain a fenceless civilization until the seventeenth century. They're dyed-in-the-wool free. They go where they want, when they want, doing what they want. Their lives are a literal journey. When the English came and built fences to pen in their cattle, the Aborigines couldn't fathom it. And, ignorant to the end of the principle at work, they were classified as dangerous and antisocial and were driven away, to the outback. The people who build high, strong frences are the ones who survive the best." (from Haruki Murakami's novel 'Kafka on the Shore')

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 "The traditional Chinese house is inward-facing and enclosed by a wall to provide shelter from the harsh winter winds." (translated from Landenreeks China)

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 "A Mongolian yurt is perfectly round not only to create the maximum space out of the least material, but also to stand up to the fierce katabatic winds, which whistle round it rather than topple it over." (Dornod Sumber)

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The vast majority of China’s desertified areas (white) is situated in the four so-called Autonomous Regions: Inner Mongolia (IM), Ningxia (N), Xinjiang (X) and Tibet (T), home to the Mongol, Hui, Uigur and Tibetan peoples respectively..

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On a hilltop outside Xilinhot, the Chinese authorities have erected copies of Lamaist stupas as a tribute to the Mongolian heritage of the region. Rarely visited by either Mongolians or Han Chinese, the site is an impressive monument to cynicism: while Mongolians gathered around those stupas to ask the gods for plentiful rainfall on the grasslands, the same Chinese authorities continue the assault on the hydrology of the region. No heritage without death.

Only two concentrical earth mounds remain of the Palace of Kublai Khan, the first Mongol to become Emperor of China. From Marco Polo, who arrived at Xanadu in 1275, we know that "the palace was made of cane supported by 200 silk cords, which could be taken to pieces and transported easily when the Emperor moved". Kublai Khan inhabited the palace before he moved south to establish Khanbilaq (nowadays Beijing) as the capital of the Yuan dynasty, and used it after that as his summer residence. Today, Xanadu is a forgotton ruin halfway between the Great Wall and the Mongolian border. A ruin without stones - the traces of its mounds lightly etched in the grasslands.

For several millenia, the Great Wall of China separated two diametrically opposed cultures. To the south, Chinese farmers in the fertile valleys of Hebei, and to the north, Mongolian semi-nomadic shepherds on the highlands. Since 1924, when an armed revolution led the Mongolian pastoralists to independence from encroaching Chinese agriculturalists, the border between China (C) and Mongolia (M) sits five hundred miles to the north. Situated roughly in between the Great Wall and the current border, Inner Mongolia (IM) was established in 1947 as the first Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic.

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Paranoically trying to adapt to shifting boundaries and changing threats, the Great Wall took shape as a collection of roughly parallel segments rather than a single protection wall. This masterpiece of shortsightedness, built by successive inward-looking dynasties (Qing and Han full line, Ming dotted) and obsolete in times of others (Tang, Yuan), spanned many more miles than ‘needed’, yet never adequately protected the Empire.

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An up close view of the Wall shows that also a construction method masterplan was considered unnecessary. Layers of brick parallel to the slope randomly alternate with horizontal layers.

Samples of the Green Wall of China. Millions of trees lining railways, fields and roads in Inner Mongolia.

“Mao’s principles held that constant struggle was part of existence, and thus that acceptance of the status quo was in itself a bad thing.” (Rough Guide to China, History)

Vegetation in checkerboard patterns to contain eroding soil along road 207A to Xilinhot. Checkerboard vegetation can be found in replantation projects of all sizes (from roadside consolidation to entire hillsides), all over Inner Mongolia.

Sea of saplings near Wengniuteqi, Chifeng League, Inner Mongolia.

”Although forest clearing continues at a frightening rate, China’s overall forest cover has recently risen to almost fourteen percent, mainly brought about by the Green Wall. Sadly though, the biological value of these replanted forests is far lower than that of the natural forests they replace. Replanted forests can provide timber for industrial and household use, but do not adequately replace the role of natural forests in protecting soil, retaining water or supporting wildlife.” (Rough Guide to China, Environment)

Wind turbine near Bayanxilemuchang, Inner Mongolia, slowly making its turns in an early October blizzard.

”With the cost of wind-generated electricity now competitive with electric energy generated from fossil fuels, constructing rows of wind turbines in strategic areas to slow the wind could greatly reduce the erosion of soil. This also affords an opportunity to phase out the use of wood for fuel, thus lightening the pressure on forests.” (Lester Brown)

”Other words popular to the Chinese are included in China’s most authoritative dictionary, such as ‘digital TV’, ‘greenhouse effect’, ‘cruise missile’, ‘eco-environment’, ‘download’, ‘desertification’, and ‘mobile phone’.” (China Daily, feb 2004)

"This is a great wall and only a great people with a great past could have a great wall and such a great people with such a great wall will surely have a great future."
(Richard Nixon, on visiting the Great Wall in 1972).