From turning green to bringing life back
I first heard about the Kubuqi Desert 35 years ago, when I was doing my master's in ecology. It sounded strange and remote. As my studies and research progressed, I learned that the area had once been virtually barren, even being dubbed a "sea of death". That phrase stayed with me.
My view of the place changed during a field trip several years ago. Standing on the edge of the desert, I saw a vast expanse of deep-blue photovoltaic panels quietly changing the color of the land, transforming what was once a sea of death into an oasis of energy.
One of the people accompanying me explained: "We used to rely on subsidies to plant trees and combat desertification. Now revenue from solar power generation can be reinvested for the same purpose. Even the grass growing beneath the panels can be sold."
The scene made me realize that ecological governance in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region is undergoing a fundamental shift — from spending money on protecting nature to making money from nature to protect nature, and from simply preserving green to managing green as an asset.
Looking back and ahead at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period, I have come to see that Inner Mongolia's ecological civilization is no longer about how many trees have been planted or how much desert land has been treated. It is a deeper institutional transformation involving territorial spatial governance, a shift in the model of development, a reshaping of competing interests and the strengthening of national security capabilities.
From fragmented restoration to systemic governance
Inner Mongolia is a crucial ecological security barrier in northern China. Stretching across Northeast China, North China and Northwest China, it contains the country's largest and most diverse concentration of ecological functional areas in the north. Forests, grasslands, rivers and lakes, wetlands and deserts are interwoven here, forming an integrated ecological security landscape. The region bears major responsibility for safeguarding clean air and water, shielding against sandstorms, conserving water and wetlands, and protecting biodiversity. This makes clear that ecological protection in Inner Mongolia is never merely a regional issue; it is part of China's national security.
China's experience in ecological governance shows that for a considerable period, environmental management was characterized by campaigns focused on individual factors, projects and government departments. Forests, grasslands, water resources and minerals were managed by different authorities, allowing administrative boundaries to fragment ecological space and often producing mutually offsetting outcomes. For example, a degraded grassland may see increased desertification due to alterations in surface runoff caused by water conservancy projects; a restored wetland may dry up again because of excessive agricultural water extraction upstream.
Another problem deserves attention. After grazing bans and seasonal restrictions were introduced, grasslands recovered to varying degrees, but herdsmen's incomes fell to some extent, creating tension between ecological protection and livelihoods. The paradox of environmental protection leading to lower incomes and even poverty has made it difficult for some ecological policies to take root in practice.
In recent years, Inner Mongolia has begun adopting integrated protection and systematic governance of mountains, rivers, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands and deserts. The prerequisite for this shift is a new way of thinking; its core is a restructuring of the logic of governance.
Grasslands, forests, wetlands and deserts are increasingly managed as parts of a living system, while ecological space is being elevated from an adjunct to resource utilization to a key variable in territorial spatial governance. Institutionally, ecological conservation red lines have been incorporated into territorial spatial planning, while the forest, lake and river chief systems and grass-livestock balance systems are being better coordinated.
Campaigns to tackle sandy terrain in Horqin and Hunshandake emphasize a combination of closed forest cultivation, aerial seeding and afforestation, together with measures such as enclosure. Along the Yellow River, wetland conservation is increasingly being coordinated with agricultural water saving, ecological water replenishment and biodiversity restoration.
The substance of this systemic approach is a redistribution of responsibilities and powers. The fragmentation of ecological protection in the past stemmed fundamentally from different departments managing their own sections and balancing their own interests, while the integrity of ecosystems was broken apart by administrative logic.
Under a systemic approach, the most important task is to break down departmental barriers, administrative boundaries and project-based thinking, and establish cross-regional coordination mechanisms based on river basins, sandy terrain and grassland zones.
Promoting integrated development of ecology and industries
Ecological industrialization means treating ecological resources as factors of production, fostering green and low-carbon industries, and using market mechanisms to realize the value of ecological products. Industrial ecologization, by contrast, relies on innovation in green production technologies to transform traditional industries, fundamentally changing their resource consumption and environmental footprint.
For a long time, the value of ecological products in Inner Mongolia was seriously underestimated. When that happens, environmental protection becomes a burden on local government finances. When the ecological costs of industrial development are not borne by those who generate them, ecological degradation and pollution are almost inevitable.
In terms of industrial ecologization, grassland livestock farming is shifting from quantitative expansion to quality-oriented development. The grass-livestock balance system, combined with housed and semi-housed livestock raising and rotational grazing and rest periods, is encouraging herdsmen to reduce overgrazing while improving productivity and quality.
Mine-site ecological restoration is also moving beyond simple land covering and revegetation toward integrated models combining restoration with industrial land use, carbon sinks and the resource utilization of mine tailings. Circular transformation of traditional industries and cleaner-production audits are also advancing. These changes show that industrial ecologization is not about restricting development; it is about changing the cost structure and quality logic of development.
Ecological industrialization is more complicated, but also offers greater room for growth. Forestry, grassland and desert industries, ecotourism, the carbon-sink economy, and the integration of wind and solar power with desertification control are all important ways of realizing the value of ecological products. In particular, integrated projects combining desertification control with wind and photovoltaic power have become a leading example of how ecological industrialization and industrial ecologization can reinforce each other.
In the Kubuqi and Ulan Buh deserts, photovoltaic power stations are evolving into composite systems combining power generation above the panels, planting between them, ecological restoration underneath and livestock raising around them. New energy companies can reinvest revenue from power generation into combating desertification, and generate additional income through grass sales and carbon-sink development, while local governments gain tax revenues and ecological improvements. Herdsmen benefit from land leasing, maintenance jobs and a share of revenues from grass production.
The innovation in this model lies in turning ecological governance from a cost center into a revenue center, and deserts from a burden into an asset. But there is a clear danger that ecological industrialization could degenerate into "green land grabbing" or greenwashing, which is to make an entity appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.
Without rigorous environmental impact assessments, wind and photovoltaic projects may create new fragmentation of grasslands and destroy wildlife habitats.
Without sound measurement and equitable distribution, carbon-sink projects could become little more than a game for capital, while local communities are pushed to the margins. The key to integration, therefore, lies in institutions. China needs systems for defining ownership of ecological assets, distributing revenues, evaluating ecological performance and managing negative lists, so that ecological industries are rooted in genuine ecological improvement rather than becoming parasites on a green veneer.
Green finance is an important pillar of this integration. The major landmark campaigns under the Three-North project against desertification require enormous amounts of funding. Reliance on fiscal investment alone would make sustainable development difficult. Inner Mongolia therefore needs to explore a shift from direct fiscal spending toward green bonds, ecological funds, loans backed by carbon-sink assets and eco-environment-oriented development models, enabling private capital to enter the ecological sector through a closed loop of restoration-operation-returns.
More fundamentally, it needs mechanisms to realize the value of ecological products, bringing ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration by grasslands, wetland purification and windbreaks and sand fixation into the market and public finance, and assigning them a monetary value.
Strengthening coordination mechanisms
Reconciling ecological protection with improved livelihoods and sustainable regional development requires a comprehensive institutional framework. In the past, some local governments wanted more greenery while herdsmen wanted more livestock.
The main reason for the imbalance was that local farmers and herdsmen bore most of the costs of ecological protection, while the benefits spilled over downstream and across the country. Unless those who protect nature can benefit from doing so, and those who benefit are made to pay, ecological protection will be difficult to sustain.
During one field trip, I encountered a revealing case. A herdsman leased a severely degraded pasture to a desertification-control company, which planted caragana shrubs there. He then became an employee responsible for maintaining the land. Apart from collecting rent from the land transfer, he was earning wages. After harvesting, the caragana could be used as animal feed and biomass fuel, while the carbon sinks it generated could also be traded in the market.
The herdsman said: "The grassland used to be so degraded that we could barely keep sheep. Now the grass is slowly coming back, and our income is actually higher than before." The case shows that ecological protection can lead to job creation and income growth, creating a virtuous cycle of protection-restoration-returns-renewed protection.
The fourth round of the grassland ecological protection subsidy and incentive policy (2026-30) is now in place. The next step should be to move beyond payments based purely on area toward rewarding ecological outcomes, so that herders become producers and managers of grassland ecological products rather than passive recipients of compensation.
Public-interest ecological stewardship jobs, pasture-leasing cooperatives and specialized cooperatives for desertification control and afforestation are giving farmers and herdsmen new ways to participate in ecological protection, restoration and conservation.
These practices show that the key to aligning ecological protection with livelihoods is the creation of a new social division of labor, in which some people move from traditional resource-based industries into green sectors such as ecological stewardship, ecotourism, nature education and carbon-sink management.
Sustainable regional development also requires ecological compensation mechanisms. The ecosystem services provided by Inner Mongolia benefit Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, northeastern China and the country as a whole, while much of the cost of protection is borne by Inner Mongolia itself. The region should therefore explore cross-regional mechanisms for ecological compensation, water-rights trading, carbon-emissions trading and carbon-sink trading, allowing beneficiary regions to make reasonable payments.
At the national level, greater support should also be provided to Inner Mongolia to equalize access to basic public services, so that regions committed to ecological protection are not left behind in education, healthcare and transport simply because they refrain from intensive development.
Building new ecological security infrastructure and creating smart borders
If systemic governance addresses the question of how to protect, and ecological industrialization addresses how to generate value, then digitalization, the carbon sink economy and smart border development provide the new infrastructure and governance capacity needed to safeguard Inner Mongolia's ecological security.
Digital monitoring is providing a stronger data foundation for ecological governance. Satellite remote sensing, drone patrols, internet of things sensors and artificial intelligence can monitor grassland degradation, fires, pests and rodents, illegal land reclamation and changes in groundwater in real time. This not only improves efficiency, but also changes the mode of governance, shifting from reactive responses to addressing early warnings and from experience-based judgment to data-driven decision-making.
The carbon-sink economy is a major avenue for realizing the value of ecological products. Inner Mongolia has vast tracts of grasslands, forests and wetlands, giving it enormous potential for carbon sequestration. But for carbon sinks to become a genuine economy, problems involving measurement, monitoring, methodologies, property rights and trading rules must first be solved. Methodologies for measuring carbon sinks in grasslands are still underdeveloped, creating a risk of speculative "carbon branding".
Inner Mongolia should take the lead in building a grassland carbon-sink monitoring and accounting platform, advancing methodological research and standards, and steadily exploring pathways for bringing verified grassland carbon sinks into the national carbon market. It should avoid the temptation to pursue the scale of carbon trading at the expense of ecological integrity.
Smart borders have a dual meaning. Inner Mongolia has a long frontier, making it both an ecological security barrier and a national security barrier. Smart border development should not be limited to border control. It should also encompass monitoring trans-boundary ecological corridors, protecting wildlife migration routes, coordinating desertification control across borders, and jointly preventing and controlling grassland fires.
Digital tools can make ecological security in border areas visible, measurable and manageable, while also supporting border stability and regional cooperation. Broadly, smart borders are a concrete application of the Digital China initiative in the field of ecological security, extending the ecological security barrier from physical space into the digital realm and upgrading it from static defense to dynamic governance.
Looking ahead at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan
Inner Mongolia's ecological civilization development is transitioning from governance by scale to governance by value, and from a project-based approach to an institution-based approach. Over the next five years, institutional innovation should be a priority in order to drive high-quality development of ecological civilization in Inner Mongolia.
First, Inner Mongolia should establish an "ecological asset account" and a natural capital balance sheet. The area and quality of grasslands, forests, wetlands and deserts, along with their functions in carbon sequestration, water conservation and biodiversity, should be incorporated into a unified accounting system. This would support the dual accounting and assessment of GDP and gross ecosystem product, or GEP.
Only by fully identifying and accurately accounting for its ecological wealth can Inner Mongolia avoid reducing its ecological performance to superficial indicators such as the area of land afforested. It would also provide a firmer basis for cadre evaluations, ecological compensation and green finance.
Second, a Three-North ecological bank or a northern ecological products exchange center could be established. It could integrate green bonds, ecological funds, loans backed by carbon-sink assets and ecological insurance, issue long-term, low-interest special local government bonds for ecological restoration, and attract private capital into the ecological sector through "restoration-operation-returns" models. The key is to establish a market mechanism to determine a fair price of ecological products through supply and demand, and risk-sharing in ecological products, so that private capital can enter, stay and earn a reasonable return.
Third, integrated wind and solar power and desertification-control projects should be incorporated into territorial spatial planning and biodiversity impact assessments. A negative list should be introduced for renewable energy and ecological restoration projects, with clear standards for vegetation coverage beneath panels, soil improvement, wildlife corridors and the intensity of forage harvesting.
The goal is to prevent a situation in which the desert is treated at the expense of the grassland. Integrated desertification-control and wind-and-solar projects should not be judged solely by installed capacity and power-generation revenues. Their net gains in biodiversity and the distribution of benefits to local communities should matter just as much.
Fourth, wetland conservation and binding water-resource constraints in the Yellow River Basin should be strengthened. Inner Mongolia should establish a mechanism linking ecological water replenishment and water-rights trading for wetlands along the Yellow River, and explore the creation of wetland banks and water-rights banks.
Water saved from agriculture should be repurposed for ecological uses, and such wetland restoration and biodiversity protection should evolve from piecemeal projects into enduring institutional frameworks.
The wetlands along Inner Mongolia's section of the Yellow River are important stops for migratory birds. Protecting them is not merely an ecological task; it is also a responsibility to safeguard the river basin's civilization.
Fifth, market-based mechanisms should be developed for the ecological restoration of abandoned mines left over from the past. An integrated policy package combining restoration, land-use rights transfers, tailings resource utilization, carbon-sink revenues and trading of quotas for land that is designated and used for the construction of buildings, structures, and other non-agricultural facilities could reduce reliance on public finances. Mine restoration should not simply amount to covering scars with greenery. It should restore both the productive and ecological functions of the land and, where possible, create new space for economic activity.
Sixth, ecological compensation should be linked with access to basic public services. A professional career path for ecological stewards should be established, while new forms of business such as ecological education, nature-based experiences, grassland homestays and under-forest economies should be developed, giving young people reasons to return and stay.
People are at the heart of ecological protection. An ecological security barrier without people is fragile. Only when those who protect nature can live decent and dignified lives will ecological security have its firmest foundation.
Seventh, a digital platform for ecological governance should be built in northern China. Data on forestry and grasslands, water management, natural resources and border administration should be integrated to enable a single map for situational awareness, a unified network for governance and coordinated action across agencies. At the same time, data security and privacy protection must be taken seriously, so that technology-driven governance does not create a new kind of digital burden.
Fundamentally, ecological security in Inner Mongolia cannot rely solely on protection, nor can it depend simply on going green. It needs institutional innovation to make green development the foundation of growth. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, what Inner Mongolia needs most is more systematic and comprehensive institutional reform.
When ecological assets can be accounted for, traded and distributed; when those who protect nature genuinely benefit and those who benefit genuinely pay; and when digitalization gives every grassland, wetland and stretch of desert a clear set of data and clearly assigned responsibilities, Inner Mongolia's ecological security barrier can truly move from turning green to bringing life back — transforming the ecological front line of northern China into a source of institutional innovation for the country's ecological civilization.
The author is the director of the Center for Ecological and Environmental Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
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