Unierdaogetao, a Mongolian herdsman who has lived for more than 40 years in north China's Kubuqi Desert, on Sunday shared his life experience with environmentalists and members of the media at the Kubuqi International Desert Forum in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The Kubuqi desert. [File photo]

Many participants to the forum visited Unierdaogetao's home in Herdsmen's New Village, a concentrated settlement by the side of the Qixing Lake in Ordos.

"I used to live on the desertified pasture and had to shovel sands that were threatening to engulf my home after every sandstorm," he said. "But then Elion Resources Group moved us to the settlement in 2007."

Twenty years ago, Inner Mongolia-based Elion Resources Group Company started building green belts on the edge of the Kubuqi, the country's seventh largest desert, and the nearest sandstorm source that can affect Beijing.

In 2007, the company helped move 36 herdsmen households, including Unierdaogetao's family, who used to live nomadically, to the concentrated settlement.

Since then, the desertified area besieged by the Kubuqi Desert has been turned into an oasis through the company's ecological project.

"Since we settled down in the village, we have not only become the company's planting workers but also shareholders," the Mongolian herdsman told visitors.

He said the company helped them raise livestock and build greenhouses to grow vegetables. They could sell produce to the scenic administrative office of Qixing Lake, which is also operated by the company.

Some 220 local and overseas participants to the Kubuqi International Forum praised the method of desert control, which has turned the ecological protection project into an industry.

"All the elements of sustainable development are well implemented here," said Mohan Munasinghe, vice chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He noticed that the desert control project on Kubuqi Desert has not only brought in new techniques for afforestation, but also introduced the planting of medicinal herbs and started an eco-tourism destination.

Wang Wenbiao, chairman of the board of Elion Resources, told participants that the company sells farm produce grown through the efforts of more than 32,000 farmers and herdsmen.

The private company has gross assets of 7.3 billion yuan (1.13 billion U.S. dollars). Its listed arm of Elion Science and Technology Industrial Company reported a profit of 469 million yuan in 2010.

Wang said at the forum that when dealing with desert control, it is not enough to get funding for treating desertification. An ecological project can only become sustainable when the local community benefits from the work.

He compared the funding of desert-control work to a "blood transfusion," and developing the ecological industry in deserts as the "formation of blood cells."

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