The “rock mountain” of Dengjiangwan village of Wuling town was covered with green trees

19,237.5mu stony desertification land has been improved by Yizhang county since 2012

“It used to be a rock mountain there. We planted the trees between the gaps of stones. Lacking of soil and water storing capacity, the survival rate of tree was very low. The trees you can see here was the fifth batch we planted here.”said Deng Yingsheng- Village Secretary of Dengjiangwan village of Wuling town.

Stony desertification which is called “cancer of the earth”is a degradation phenomena caused by people’s behaviors on the tropical, subtropical humid and subhumid climate condition and developmental krast natural background. The land under such stony desertification was suffered great destruction of land vegetation, serious soil erosion, and large-sized barren baserock or xalsonte. “It is liable to suffer mountain torrents, landslide, mud-rock flow, drought and serious soil erosion under such stony desertification condition.”said Liao Jiangying- principal of technology promotion station of Yizhang Forestry Bureau.

A “soil and water conservation”project was launched by the village in 2005 which aimed to fight for the stony desertification. Deng could not forget the hard situation for their first try to plant trees there. All the pine trees loaded from the foot mountain died later. Azalea, maple and some other trees were planted there afterward, but failed as well.
Yizhang county placed great support on the village to handle the trees planting work. Favorable polices, subsidies for the trees planting, and etc. were helpful to change the rock mountain to oasis- gladly introduced by Deng.

It was learned that three-year greening project and establishment of national forest city project were implemented by Yizhang county from 2010. Special mechanism as government guidance, market operation and social participation was formed in the county to collect more funds from government, enterprises and society. 1.65billion yuan has been placed on the forestation work, which helped to solve the capital problem efficiently. 600million yuan was placed in 2014 for the three-year greening project of urban and rural area.

The days suffered from water shortage was still vivid in Xiao Wanzhong’s eyes. Xiao was one of the villagers of Leigongshui natural village. “All the water leaked from the gap of rocks in earlier days. The reason why our village was called Leigongshui (thunder god’s water) was that we can only get some water after heavy storm. But that water was muddy that not sufficient for irrigation and daily life.”said Xiao, “but now, as you can see from the well, the water gained from yesterday’s rain is clear.” Thanks for the governance of stony desertification, the drinking water problem for the village was solved. Xiao and other villagers benefited greatly from the forestation project and were willing to keep it.

The change of Wuling village was just one of the tips of the iceberg for the stony desertification governance of Yizhang county. According to the data, the stony desertification area of the county was used to be over 0.4million mu with a rate of 13.73%. Yizhang county was listed as the third batch key counties of China to handle the stony desertification governance in 2012. A three-year comprehensive stony desertification governance project was launched in 2012 in this county as well. It was introduced that over 32million yuan has been placed to this governance work and 19,237.5mu stony desertification land has been improved by Yizhang county since 2012. Yizhang county’s forest coverage rate increased to 58.71%.