Our Focus

15.2
By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
15.4
By 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development

Kubuqi Ecological Restoration Project

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates the Kubuqi Ecological Restoration Project — to give the greening of the desert its formal name — to be worth $1.8 billion over 50 years. Kubuqi’s transformation burnishes China’s credentials as an environmental leader at a time.

News and Media Coverage

    Reports

    Review of the Kubuqi Ecological Restoration Project A Desert Green Economy

    Pilot Initiative - 2015

    Publications

      Images

      ACCOMPLISHMENT

      Restored Desert

      9.69 Million ACRES

      Water Conservation

      24.376 Billion CUBIC METRES

      Carbon Sequestration

      15.40 Million TONS

      Release Oxygen

      18.30 Million TONS

      Eco&Social Revenue

      500 Billion RMB

      Provide

      1 Million JOBS

      Consequences Of Desertification

      Since dryland environments are used for a variety of human purposes (such as agriculture, animal grazing, and fuelwood collection), the various activities undertaken in them can exacerbate the problem of desertification and bring about lasting changes to dryland ecosystems. In 1977, at the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNCOD) in Nairobi, Kenya, representatives and delegates first contemplated the worldwide effects of desertification. The conference explored the causes and contributing factors and also possible local and regional solutions to the phenomenon. In addition, the delegates considered the varied consequences of desertification, such as crop failures or decreased yields in rain-fed farmland, the loss of perennial plant cover and thus loss of forage for livestock, reduced woody biomass and thus scarcity of fuelwood and building materials, a decrease in potable water stocks from reductions in surface water and groundwater flow, increased sand dune intrusion onto croplands and settlements, increased flooding due to rising sedimentation in rivers and lakes, and amplified air and water pollution from dust and sedimentation.

      A woman in Nigeria pouring grains of millet into a bowl in the village of Sadongori Kolita, near Maradi. Low rainfall and locusts caused a food crisis during the summer of 2005. Daniel Berehulak—Reportage/Getty Images