Shi Guangyin is an eco-warrior who has been battling desertification for close to 40 years. The farmer found his calling to green the barren landscape at a young age and in the process change the lives of people living there.
“Combatting desertification is my sole career. My fight continues as long as my life continues. I shall not stop planting trees or combatting desertification until my last breath,” vows Shi.
Shi Guangyin, a farmer as well as a Party member, has dedicated all his time and energy to controlling desertification and greening the barren landscape in his hometown for several decades. Finally, his dream comes true.
Affliction by the Sand
Shi was born in a township named Haiziliang on the southern edge of the Mu Us Desert in Dingbian County, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province in February 1952. The local climate is tough, and so is life for the locals. Growing up in such an environment, Shi knows only too well how much pain and harm the encroaching sand can cause. He remembers how sandstorms used to terrorize the villagers and make their lives a misery. Sandstorms could also easily destroy all the crops the villagers had grown, and the invasive flow of sand dunes could swallow people’s houses. Shi recalls how he moved nine times with his family in his childhood because each time sandstorms had destroyed their house.
In 1984, the government issued new policies to encourage individuals to plant trees in contracted sand lands and barren hills, hoping to rehabilitate the environment. Despite the objections of his family, Shi resigned from his leadership position at a state-owned farm and began his fight against desertification. Accompanied by his wife and children, he headed for the sand lands and contracted about 200 hectares of land where he founded Xinxing Ranch and Forest Farm (now Shaanxi Shiguangyin Sand Control Group), China’s first rural joint-stock limited corporation, dedicated to combatting desertification.
When he started out, Shi lacked both extra hands and funds. He spent all he had to purchase saplings. But it was still not enough. As a result, he sold the 84 sheep and one mule, on which the livelihood of his family depended. His other six companions also sold their livestock. Yet the amount was still not enough. In desperation, Shi went from household to household to borrow more money. Finally, he managed to raise RMB 120,000 to buy saplings, beginning his life as a green warrior.
What followed was tireless work by Shi and his team, planting several species of drought-enduring trees over the 200 hectares of sand. Although encouraged by a grand vision and firm determination, they faced hardships far greater than expected. “Living conditions back then were harsh. We all lived in the desert and had no food other than the hard, tasteless dried naan bread. Sometimes there were sandstorms and quite often someone would get blown away, so we had to pause our work and go search for him,” said Shi.
Yet they did have some luck on their side. After one year of hard work, with favorable weather and enough rainfall, 85 percent of the trees survived. Their first battle was won. The whole team was greatly encouraged and Shi’s faith in going forward was strengthened.
The One Who Perseveres Prevails
The following year, Shi contracted another 3,867 hectares of land from the state-owned Changmaotan Forest Farm.
To tackle the shortage of labor, Shi posted a recruiting advertisement on the gate of the local township government building. His sincere words persuaded 484 people to join the cohort.
There were thousands of sand dunes, large and small, in the newly contracted land. Among them, the most difficult part was Langwosha. The terrain was complicated and the environment harsh. In summer, temperatures could reach as high up as over 60 degrees Celsius, while in winter they could be lower than minus 40 degrees Celsius. Planting trees and helping them survive such extreme weather was never going to be easy. The locals thought what Shi was doing was complete insane and a waste of money. However, his courage didn’t waver. “Such effort is not for personal ambition, but for the well-being of everyone in the village. Once the sand land stops expanding and the planted trees survive, the life of the villagers would be much easier,” he said.
Langwosha is an area of about 400 hectares where strong winds prevail all year round. Shi and his team had to live there for weeks on end, suffering from blowing gales, scorching sun, and sizzling sand. They lived in basic plastic tents, ate dry corn flour bread and drank muddy water from sand pits they dug to serve as wells. Added to that, the team had to carry in the saplings, on their backs.
After the success of the first year, their luck departed. Strong winds destroyed 90 percent of the saplings they had planted. In the spring of 1987, Shi and his team tried and failed again, when 80 percent of the saplings were uprooted by sandstorms. He recalls people’s faith faltering and doubt about the project gaining the upper hand. Yet Shi still held on to his faith. The failures reminded him to reflect. Before long he realized besides hard work, scientific research was also important. The team then set out to learn from successful cases and consult professionals in forest plantations and experts in plantation techniques.
In the spring of 1988, Shi challenged Langwosha the third time. This time he was equipped with a newly acquired technique. First, he and his team set sand fixation grids on the windward slope to prevent the dune from moving; secondly, they sowed grass seeds within the grids; then they planted the trees. This technique enabled more than 80 percent of the planted saplings to survive.
After Shi’s third attempt at Langwosha, progress speeded up. In 1994 he contracted and rehabilitated 3,000 hectares of salt marsh, and 3,033 hectares of sand land in 1997. By the end of 2004, the 16,667 hectares of sand land and salt marsh contracted by Shi was fully and effectively rehabilitated. Moreover, he had accomplished a total afforestation area of 23,334 hectares. The achievement involved more than one million people’s work with tens of millions of yuan invested.
Fighting Both Sand and Poverty
In his effort to combat desertification, Shi realized that controlling the sand goes hand in hand with fighting poverty. From 1997 on, he persuaded the poorest 50 households (272 people) who lived in the Baiyu Mountains to move outside the mountains and settle in the newly built village of Shilisha, in Dingbian Town, Dingbian City. He was inspired to do this by China’s eco-migration policy. Gradually the new settlers started their new lives on the soil that used to be “an ocean of sand.” Shi gave every household a piece of land for their homestead, and showed them how to dig wells, build houses, set up wires, and breed livestock. These skills proved helpful, and their lives improved. After several years of experiment and exploration, Shi and his team established an innovative business model and mobilized the villagers to develop an economy based on forestation and livestock breeding. He founded the Xiumei Forest Farm, a fodder processing plant, a training center for forestation skills, a model ranch, a sapling center, a detoxified potato center, a pepper plantation, the newly-built eco-friendly village of Shilisha, and many other sightseeing sites, along with two primary schools.
His company made investments worth around RMB 1 million to build primary schools, allowing local children a better chance of education. As the result of Shi and the villagers’ effort, every household of the village has running water, paved concrete roads up to their doorways, upgraded power grid, and broadband Internet access. Local people’s life has changed dramatically. This in turn boosted the villagers’ willingness to volunteer in combatting desertification.
Since 2019, Shi has built 322 mobile green houses for local villagers and contracted 13 hectares of land to develop wolfberry and nectarine plantation techniques. “Throughout your lifetime, you do not have to accomplish great deeds, but you certainly must do something meaningful. I have devoted all my life to one single thing, fighting sand and poverty,” said Shi.
He has been honored with multiple awards and invited to conferences of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) to share his experience. In the view of Shi, combatting desertification is demanding and formidable: only those who persevere prevail.
