One man's lifelong quest for sustainable desert control

Exhausted after walking through the Tengger Desert in search of a way to save thousands of dying saplings, forestry engineer Tang Ximing pushed his walking stick into the sand to steady himself. When he pulled it out, the tip was moist.

Tang's chance discovery of moist sand about 50 centimeters beneath the parched surface eventually inspired a simple planting tool that increased sapling survival rates by 25 percent and doubled planting efficiency.

The planting tool is one of many solutions Tang developed during his decades-long efforts to curb desertification in the Tengger, China's fourth-largest desert, which stretches across parts of the Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, as well as Gansu province.

For Tang, 60, his interest in desert control began long before he became a forestry engineer.

Growing up in Zhongwei city, which lies on the edge of the Tengger, Tang was acutely aware of the dangers posed by shifting sands to local communities. When he was 8, he said, a classmate died after being blown into a canal during a severe sandstorm.

"That childhood trauma planted the seed of my lifelong resolve. I wanted to learn how to hold back the advancing sands," he said.

After graduating from the Northwest Forestry College, now a part of Northwest A&F University in Shaanxi province, he returned to his hometown to work on the front line of desert control.

In those days, before the widespread use of machinery, workers spent days out in the desert laying straw and planting vegetation by hand. Sandstorms could turn dangerous within minutes.

Tang recalled once throwing himself to the ground with other workers as a violent storm darkened the sky. When it passed, they had to dig themselves out of the accumulated sand.

Much of their work relied on straw checkerboards, a sand-control technique developed to protect the Baotou-Lanzhou Railway, China's first railway built across a desert. Straw is inserted into the sand to form grids that reduce wind speed and stabilize moving dunes. But the straw gradually weathers and typically lasts no more than three years.

Through repeated field experiments, Tang found that sowing drought-resistant grass seeds in the checkerboards could help create a more sustainable barrier. Seeds tended to accumulate and grow along the straw edges, allowing vegetation to reinforce the sand-fixing effect.

A greater challenge came in 2012, when Tang led a World Bank-funded project that planted nearly 133 hectares of saplings in the Tengger in Ningxia. However, strong winds and drought the following spring destroyed almost the entire plantation.

Determined to find a solution, Tang embarked on a daily 10-kilometer trek through the desert. It was during one of those walks that he discovered moisture beneath the surface. The discovery led him to develop a T-shaped iron planting tool that allowed workers to push saplings directly through the dry surface and into the deeper layer containing moisture. The method increased sapling survival rates by 25 percent and doubled planting efficiency, Tang said.

After retiring in 2024, Tang was rehired as a technical adviser on desert control and ecological restoration along the Yellow River.

On June 30, 2025, a 153-km ecological barrier along the edge of the Tengger Desert in Zhongwei was completed, marking a milestone in decades of efforts aimed at preventing shifting sands from threatening nearby communities and infrastructure.

"Through the continuous efforts of generations, we finally overcame the long-standing threat," Tang said.

His experience has also taken him overseas. During exchanges in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Tang championed the use of locally abundant cotton stalks instead of wheat straw for checkerboards. In Mongolia, he proposed rotational grazing and fencing measures based on local grassland conditions. "Sharing China's experience is not about rigid copying, but about sharing a localized philosophy of desert control," he said.

Today, Tang is turning his attention to another challenge: an aging desert-control workforce. Many workers are now in their 50s and 60s, making technologies that can reduce heavy manual labor increasingly important.

"The old equipment was version 1.0," he said. "Now we need versions 2.0 and 3.0."

His team has developed automated equipment and is working with research institutions on the use of artificial intelligence-powered robots and drones. Tang hopes machines will eventually take over more of the strenuous work involved in laying straw and planting vegetation.

Decades in the desert have also taught him that desert control does not mean eliminating every stretch of sand. "Moving sand that threatens farmland, rivers or infrastructure should be controlled," Tang said. "Naturally formed desert landscapes, however, also have ecological value."

In Zhongwei, parts of the natural desert have been preserved for research and tourism alongside protected areas, reflecting an approach that seeks to balance sand control, natural ecosystems and local livelihoods.

"Deserts are part of the natural ecosystem," Tang said.

Yang Jiayao, Zhou Jiayao and Lin Xiaoduo contributed to this story.