Vast stretches of grassland and the galloping water of the
Yellow River are some of the most beautiful scenes in Maqu
County.
However, what is sad for the county is that a sand wall, dubbed
the "Yellow Great Wall," is stretching between the river and the
grassland, resulting from ecological deterioration in Maqu County.
Desertification is now becoming increasingly severe there.
Maqu County lies in the conjunctive region of Gansu, Qinghai and
Sichuan provinces and is the place where the first of the Yellow
River’s nine bends is located. Rivers crisscross and marshes can be
found everywhere in the county. An important function of the region
is conserving and supplementing water for the upper reaches of the
River.
The Yellow River flows from its source in Qinghai
Province into Gansu
Province and makes a bend into Maqu County. After flowing for
433 kilometers throughout Maqu, the river enters Qinghai Province
again with its water runoff increased by 45 percent. So, Maqu
County is called the "water storage pool" for the Yellow River.
With the impact of global warming and increased activities of
herding, the eco-environment has deteriorated in Maqu with concerns
that the "water storage pool" for the Yellow River will become a
highland desert if preventive measures are not taken
immediately.
Head of the Maqu Grassland Administrative Station, Zong Wenjie,
said there was no desertification in the grassland in the 1940s to
1950s and the eco-environment was well conserved. Sporadic
desertification began to appear in the grassland in the 1960s to
70s and has been spreading since the 1980s. Desert-encroached areas
have been increasing by 6.14 percent annually since 1990.
Standing on the big bridge spanning the Yellow River in Maqu, a
meandering belt of dunes can be seen. At the same time, between the
grassland and the Yellow River, the "Yellow Great Wall" bulges
about 50-100 meters wide, being 10-20 meters high and 119 meters
long. In further areas, 36 desertification spots of various sizes
are scattered.
Statistics from the Maqu Grassland Administrative Station show
that the natural grassland of the county has been deteriorating and
desert encroachment getting worse in recent years. So far, out of
the total 12.88 million mu (859,000 hectares) grassland of
the county, 9.76 million mu (651,000 hectares) have
deteriorated or become desert encroached to some extent, and
800,000 mu (53,360 hectares) of grassland has seen serious
desertification, accounting for up to 6 percent of the total.
Due to the spread of desertification, the county grassland has
been disappearing little by little. More than 2,500 herdsmen and
168,000 head of livestock were forced to leave their homes in the
grasslands and some herdsmen have even been reduced to living in
poverty.
Zong Wenjie said desertification in the grassland has not only
adversely affected the local herdsmen’s life, but also posed a
threat to the eco-environment of the upper reaches of the Yellow
River. In 2002, soil erosion in Maqu County covered 2.26 million
mu (150,700 hectares), and 500,000 tons of silt ran into
the Yellow River with the water supplement volume decreasing by 15
percent.
There are 28 first-level tributaries of the Yellow River flowing
in Maqu County. Among them, 11 have now run dry all year round and
some have turned to be seasonal rivers. Many of the lakes and
marshes in the region have dried up and the wetland has shrunk from
66,700 to 20,000 hectares.
The worsening eco-environment around the first bend of the
Yellow River has attracted the attention of local government and
environmental protection departments. Sand prevention and
grass-planting experiments have already been carried out on the
dune belt along the River.
(China.org.cn translated by Zhang Tingting, July 25, 2003)