'Iron rice bowl' broken to hold back sand

Man can conquer nature, as the Chinese saying goes, and Wang Youde's success in combating sand invasion is one example.

Few people will fail to be astonished by a bird's-eye view of Baijitan National Desert Park in Lingwu county, in northwestern China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

A green "great wall" covering almost 1,800 square kilometers on the edge of the Mu Us Desert stands in stark contrast to the rolling dunes of the desert that seem to stretch out into infinity.