Regreening grasslands raises Horqin's banner

Once, the Horqin Grassland in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region was known as an ideal place to raise livestock. But years of overgrazing turned the grassland into a desert.

Then about 10 years ago, people in the Horqin Left Wing Rear Banner began to tackle the issue. Despite high temperatures in the summer, mosquito bites in the autumn and freezing temperatures in the winter, they worked hard to plant grasses and trees, and gradually turned the grasslands green again.

To date, Horqin has turned 270,000 hectares of desert into woodland and forest coverage has increased from 7 percent in the 1990s to 21.68 percent today, and as the environment has improved, incomes have risen, too.