Forests forever: China's tree-planting heroes make the impossible possible
Cracked crags, shallow soil, recurrent droughts.
Most people who love to plant trees would probably shun such a barren landscape, but a group of middle-aged men living along the middle reaches of the Yellow River – China's mother river – has been plugging away at cliff afforestation for 11 years to make the impossible possible.
"Planting trees on precipitous cliffs? You think you can do that?" some elderly villagers darted a suspicious glance at Wang Yonghong. "People in our village have tried generation after generation to conquer the cliffs, but have all failed."
In the eyes of those senior villagers, Wang's plan to plant trees on perpendicular cliffs along the Yellow River would only come to naught.
It was in 2012 when Wang was thus questioned and had doubts raised. That year Wang was only 37. As head of a local tree-planting team in Yichuan County, Shaanxi Province, he and his teammates had successfully planted trees both on the top and at the foot of many riverside mountains since 2004, but he wasn't sure whether his team could make it on the steep cliffs.
Now, 11 years have passed. What has Wang achieved?
Earlier this year, Xinhua news agency reported that Wang and his team had successfully planted more than 10,000 mu (666 hectares) of trees on those rocky cliffs in that time, turning "a mission impossible" into a human miracle.
Local people in Shaanxi Province climb up barren rocks along the Yellow River in hopes of planting trees.
Greening the ungreenable
The success was hard-won. To green the "ungreenable," Wang and his teammates had to overcome two enormous challenges: first, no solid foothold on the cliff; second, no deep soil beneath the barren rocks.
As no one knew how to plant a tree on a crag, Wang first conducted an experiment. One day, he fastened one end of a safety rope to a tree on the top of a mountain and the other end to his waist. Then he went down all the way until he landed on a not-so-steep slope of the cliff, his body kept in balance with the help of the rope.
At the same time his teammates used another rope to lower a hoe to where Wang had landed. Hoe in hand, Wang faced the cliff and dug a hole into the rocks, but what lay beneath the rocks was shallow soil – only 20 centimeters deep – which was unable to support the life of a tree.
Wang estimated that every hole in the rocky ground would require at least a cubic meter of soil for a tree to survive. He and his teammates used ropes to transport soil from other places to the rocky hole on the cliff. More than 20 rounds of soil transportation were needed to fill just one such hole.
That day, Wang planted six trees on the cliff. In contrast, one could usually plant 60 trees a day in the plains.
Wang called their cliff afforestation a "time-consuming and low-yield" project. "But it has a profound meaning and we will keep doing it," he insisted.
After his successful experiment, Wang and his teammates would always hammer a steel bar 1.5 meters deep into the ground atop a barren cliff to hold one end of a safety rope, and then lower a person down the cliff to look for proper places to dig a hole. And to deal with recurrent droughts, Wang and his teammates built many water pools on top of the cliffs.
Wang and his comrades are part of a modern Chinese saga to save the planet with afforestation. Indeed, thanks to the efforts of myriad people like Wang, China now has the world's largest land area of planted forests.
Local people use safety ropes to keep balance while planting trees on a cliff.
While Wang leads a group of farmers bent on planting trees along the Yellow River, Ma Sanxiao often struggles alone to plant trees in his home village on Taihang Mountain, which lies on the dividing line of the North China Plain and the Loess Plateau.
In the past 23 years, the 74-year-old retired soldier, who lost both legs due to poor treatment of a leech bite, has succeeded in covering all the previously barren places of Mayu Village in Hebei Province, with various trees.
Over the two decades, Ma would often walk one hour to the foot of a mountain, with hoes and other heavy metal tools attached to his crutches. But given the steep slope of the mountain, it was hard to walk uphill on crutches. To reach the tree-planting places on the top of the mountain, he would get rid of his crutches, fasten the tools on his back and inch forward on his chest and hands.
Ma Sanxiao, a 74-year-old retired soldier who has lost his two legs, stands by a small forest he has created over the past 23 years.
According to a report in People's Daily on August 23, Ma could have legally sold some of his planted trees for a handsome income, but he declined.
The reason was surprisingly simple. Although Ma began as a lone worker, he has won applause and help from many other people over the years because he has demonstrated the typical grit of a soldier – a spirit of perseverance and sacrifice. Some have donated money, others have donated saplings, and still others have joined Ma in planting trees.
Yes, when Ma first decided to plant trees in 2000, he thought of making money from it. But the 23-year experience has expanded his vision, enabling him to see a bigger world beyond his own needs. So many Samaritans have lent him support, making his tree-planting project more socially significant. Now he has decided to donate all his trees to the country in the future.
As Wang and Ma have demonstrated, planting trees goes a long way toward realizing both individual and collective dreams for a better world, a better planet.
