Women at helm of green transition
Female pioneers transform Inner Mongolia's harsh arid terrain into a thriving, sustainable economy
Female-led development
According to Liu, women have been a key part of the demonstration zone's workforce, taking roles in management, harvesting and sorting. "Women are patient, and have tenacity," she said.
The modern ecological progress stands on decades of female-led grassroots environmental efforts. In the 1960s, community leader Baoriledai organized a nine-woman volunteer group to plant trees on mobile desert dunes, launching one of China's earliest large-scale, female-driven ecological restoration initiatives.
In the 1980s, local farmer Yin Yuzhen and her husband relocated deep into the desert and planted nearly 7 million trees, with her family establishing protective forest barriers across more than 3,300 hectares of arid land.
Yin recently gained attention online after a video emerged of her thanking a long-unidentified United States benefactor who funded her early tree-planting efforts.
Today's desert agricultural workers carry forward this progress, combining scientific know-how with crops that sell, turning once-barren dunes into income for surrounding communities.
