In the sweltering heat of summer, a visitor to Nugusitai Town of Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, might find it hard to recognise the landscape. Once a desolate expanse of drifting sand, the hillsides are now cloaked in lush forest. Tall wind turbines rotate quietly, and wetlands glimmer between groves of forest, providing a haven for waterfowl.

What used to be a land of flying sand unable to even provide fodder for cattle has now become a place where residents and visitors alike can find cool respite.

The transformation of Nugusitai exemplifies the broader efforts to restore the Horqin Sandy Land. As one of China’s four major sandy areas, the Horqin stretches across Inner Mongolia as well as Jilin and Liaoning provinces, covering 66,000 square km. More than half of this area lies within Tongliao, making the city the epicentre of efforts to fight back the encroaching sands.

Restoration of the Horqin has been high on Tongliao’s development agenda since the late 1970s. In 2023, curbing the sandy land was designated a key objective in the new stage of the Three-North Shelterbelt Programme, accelerating the Horqin’s transition from barren desert to greenery.

A collective effort

Drawn by the stark beauty of the sandy landscape, Hua Weiguang has photographed this change for over a decade. As greenery spread and wildlife returned, the photographer shifted his focus to rare species now thriving in his native region.

“Being both a recorder and beneficiary of this transformation, I feel genuinely gratified by the achievements we have made,” he told?ChinAfrica.

Hua’s photographs also spotlight the people behind the greening efforts. In his opinion, local farmers and herders have been central to Tongliao’s sand control drive. Workers usually travel long distances to reach the sandy areas before dawn and return only after dark, taking brief midday breaks in the dunes. With many men migrating to cities for work, women have become a key force in the greening effort, appearing prominently in many of Hua’s photos.

Indeed, to deal with the vast stretches of degraded land with limited water resources and fragile ecosystems, Tongliao has relied on broad social participation under government leadership. “The battle to control the desertification of the Horqin is not simply about planting trees,” said Li Xiangfeng, deputy director of Tongliao’s Forestry and Grassland Bureau. “It is a comprehensive ecological revolution that requires the participation of the whole society.”

To encourage local participation, authorities have established collective economic organisations that consolidate the use rights of degraded grasslands and sandy wastelands. These are then managed with unified planning, with implementation overseen by collective bodies or state-owned enterprises. Farmers and herders can contribute labour, invest as cooperative members and share in the benefits.

For example, in the city’s Jarud Banner, desert control has been integrated with wind and solar power projects through collaboration among cooperatives, enterprises, and households. Local residents are paid wages for their labour, take on roles in maintenance, and receive fodder produced in rehabilitated lands, creating a win-win situation for companies, communities and families alike.

To diversify funding sources for sandy land restoration, Tongliao has actively promoted energy projects. Besides harnessing the rich local solar and wind resources, these projects also deliver ecological benefits. Solar panels not only generate electricity, but also provide shade for soil, reducing evaporation and creating micro-climates suitable for planting grass, herbs and fodder. Raised above the ground, these panels allow local people to cultivate shade-tolerant crops and raise livestock underneath, creating additional income sources.

At the frontlines of restoration, technicians have been introducing innovative methods. For Chaoketu, head of the forestry workstation in the city’s Horqin Zuoyi Rear Banner, improving tree survival is key, and his team have come up with an innovative way to do that: planting seedlings in deep pits with a shallow soil cover. The simple yet effective technique not only cuts afforestation costs, but also speeds up forest growth, thereby strengthening the region’s battle against desertification.

The technique allows seedlings to be placed in the moist sand layer, while a concave barrier is formed around them. This protects young trees from fierce desert winds, reduces water evaporation inside the pit, and even stores rainwater. With only a thin layer of soil covering the roots, sunlight penetrates easily, warming the roots and accelerating growth. “One method tackles three key challenges for seedling survival – wind, light, and water,” Chaoketu said.

The results speak for themselves. Before the new method was introduced, survival rates for spring planting hovered around 50 percent. Now, they exceed 90 percent, while water use has dropped by more than half. Moreover, the technique overcomes the seasonal barrier of afforestation, allowing trees to be planted year-round and supporting a wide range of species. Since its rollout in 2013, the method has been used to restore more than 40,000 hectares of land.

These collective efforts have made impressive achievements. To date, Tongliao has restored more than 1.33 million hectares of severely degraded sandy land. Forest cover has risen from just 8.9 percent in 1978 to nearly 20 percent today, while grassland vegetation coverage has climbed to almost 65 percent.

Improving livelihoods

Land restoration and protection in Tongliao require more diversified sources of income for farmers and herders. The city has therefore pursued a strategy that integrates ecological goals with economic opportunities.

One of the success stories has been the cultivation of the “Saiwaihong” apple, a locally developed small, sweet apple variety widely grown in the sandy areas. The production is expected to exceed 1 billion yuan ($140.2 million) in 2025. Under the trees, traditional Chinese and Mongolian medicinal herbs can be planted, diversifying income streams. Growers have witnessed an increase in annual earnings by more than 8,000 yuan ($1,121.3) per capita.

Under-forest farming and animal husbandry, including the cultivation of medicinal herbs and edible mushrooms, is another growth pillar. Twelve medicinal herb bases have been established, with nearly 30 varieties under cultivation and an annual output value exceeding 700 million yuan ($98.1 million). Overall, around 80,000 farmers are engaged in under-forest industries, earning an average of 2,700 yuan ($378.4) each.

Ecotourism has also flourished. With desert parks, wetlands, forests and grassland attractions around its 500-km Horqin tourism corridor, the city draws more than 2 million visitors each year, generating 1.6 billion yuan ($224.3 million) in annual revenue. The city is also working to increase its appeal to tourists by preserving some of its natural desert landscapes, with forests and sand barriers locking their edges.

Looking ahead, Tongliao has set ambitious goals for the Horqin Sandy Land by 2030, which include effective rehabilitation of more than 90 percent of the sandy land, and raising per-capita disposable income in sandy areas by an average of 8 percent annually.

For Hua, the future looks bright. His photographs have shown the disappearance of sandy expanses, one patch at a time, replaced by forests, grasslands and wetlands.

“I believe that in another three to five years, this land will look very different again,” he said confidently.