Becoming a distinctive model of the Beautiful China initiative
The Inner Mongolia autonomous region stretches about 2,400 kilometers from east to west and up to 1,700 kilometers from north to south on China's northern frontier, making it an ecological security shield.
Inner Mongolia has the most diverse range of ecological functional zones in northern China, with its grasslands, forests and wetlands accounting for 22 percent, 12 percent and 16 percent of the country's total areas, respectively, while its sandy desert terrain accounts for about one-quarter of the country's total.
Through integrated management of forests and grasslands, deserts and water ecosystems, Inner Mongolia has made significant achievements and accumulated valuable experience in terms of theory, practice and methodology.
If natural elements — which are interconnected — are managed in isolation, the results are likely to be bad. A systemic approach, by contrast, can generate better outcomes, achieving more with less and, in some cases, optimizing the entire system.
Following the concept of a shared future for nature, Inner Mongolia has pursued integrated management of forests and grasslands, deserts and water ecosystems, scientifically managing land to expand oases, using forests and grasslands to conserve water so that water can nourish all life, and managing water scientifically to turn potential hazards into benefits.
Governments and departments at different levels, regions and countries should recognize that they have shared interests and shared destinies. A loss for one can become a loss for all, while a gain for one can benefit all. This calls for coordinated efforts to advance ecological conservation, development and common prosperity.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, Inner Mongolia has firmly embraced a systemic approach and vigorously promoted integrated management of forests and grasslands, water ecosystems and deserts. In doing so, it has established four major systems required by a systems-engineering approach.
The first is a goal-setting system. Inner Mongolia has formulated and issued an outline for building a beautiful Inner Mongolia from 2025 to 2035. Some 87 percent of Inner Mongolia's territory has been designated as a restricted-development area, while more than half has been incorporated into ecological conservation red lines. The total area covered by these red lines has reached 596,900 square kilometers.
The second is a working system. Inner Mongolia has established a five-tier forest chief system involving Party and government leaders. For 2025, 18 key tasks were identified in five areas: improving the forest chief system, advancing forest and grassland ecological development, innovating resource conservation measures, deepening reform and development in the forestry and grassland sectors, and ensuring the supply of forest and grassland resources.
The third is a support system. In 2026, Inner Mongolia revised its measures to implement the Forest Law, incorporating the planning requirements into statutory provisions. It introduced a series of local laws and regulations on ecological and environmental protection, ensuring that ecological governance remains consistent and binding.
The fourth is an evaluation system. To ensure that local officials attach genuine importance to ecological conservation, Inner Mongolia has enhanced the weightage given to environmental protection in government official performance evaluations. In Hohhot, for example, the weightage given to ecological and environmental protection was raised in stages from 7 percent in 2020 to more than 20 percent in 2025.
The Yellow River meanders for 843.5 kilometers through Inner Mongolia in an U-shape. The region was once among the areas with the most severe soil erosion and most fragile ecosystems in China.
In the past, fragmented administrative jurisdictions and divided departmental responsibilities often led to a situation in which too many authorities were trying to manage the same river without sufficient coordination. But now, a systemic approach has proved key to breaking this deadlock. The seven leagues and cities along the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia have launched joint prevention and control efforts, breaking down administrative barriers and establishing a mechanism for coordinated cross-regional ecological governance.
The essence of the "two mountains" concept, which holds that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", is to put ecological conservation first, pursue green development, and ensure that the benefits are shared.
Through this principle, Inner Mongolia has systematically advanced the integrated management of forests and grasslands, deserts and wetlands, achieving notable results.
First, it has prioritized ecological conservation to protect its lucid waters and lush mountains.
The economic system is a subsystem of the ecological system, and ecological systems are constrained by resource, environmental and climate thresholds. Ecological conservation must therefore take priority.
Forest cover and grassland vegetation cover have both increased in the region. When the autonomous region was established, forest cover was less than 8 percent. By 2025, it had risen to 21.98 percent. Once, illegal cases on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia were highly frequent, at one point accounting for 87 percent of the total number of such cases nationwide.
Today, it has become a model of harmonious coexistence among people, grasslands and livestock.
Water quality and water-use efficiency have improved. The proportion of sections with water quality meeting good standards continues to rise, while all sections with water quality below Class V have been eliminated.
The Heihe River, which once suffered from seasonal drying up, now flows all year round. Wetlands across the region have remained stable at around 70 million mu (4.67 million hectares), playing an important role in biodiversity conservation.
Inner Mongolia is one of the regions in China where desertification and land degradation are most concentrated and their impacts most severe. But of late, desert and sandy areas are on the decline. In 2009, while participating in research for large-scale development of China's western region, I traveled by car for an entire day from Erenhot to Hohhot. I kept my eyes fixed on the landscape, looking for signs of ecological recovery. What I saw instead was land affected by desertification, sandification and salinization almost everywhere.
Today, however, Inner Mongolia has achieved a historic transformation from a situation in which "sand advances, people retreat" to one in which "people advance, sand retreats".
Second, green development is a priority. Only by making economic development more ecological and turning ecological advantages into economic value can the "two mountains" concept be translated into tangible results.
Inner Mongolia is rich in fossil energy resources, particularly coal. Its coal reserves rank first in China. At the same time, it possesses exceptional potential for wind and solar power. Its technically exploitable wind-energy resources account for about 57 percent of the national total, while its technically exploitable solar-energy resources account for about 21 percent.
Developing the new energy industry is therefore a natural choice for Inner Mongolia to capitalize on its resource advantages. It is also part of the region's responsibility in building a new energy system.
The Hohhot-Baotou-Yinchuan-Yulin region is China's "golden triangle" of fossil energy. During a research trip to chart a development plan for this key economic zone in 2011, local residents around the mining areas told us that State-owned coal mines had "dug a pit, released a plume of smoke and left behind a pile of ash".
Today, mining enterprises are being developed and transformed in accordance with green-mining standards. At the same time, Inner Mongolia is vigorously developing green energy. The region has been approved to host the first, second and third batches of China's large-scale wind and photovoltaic power bases, as well as the country's large-scale wind and photovoltaic projects in the Gobi Desert and other arid regions.
In 2025, Inner Mongolia added 35 million kilowatts of new renewable energy capacity, bringing its total renewable energy capacity to more than 170 million kilowatts. Wind power capacity surpassed 100 million kilowatts in 2025, making Inner Mongolia the first region in China to reach that milestone.
For the first time, wind power capacity exceeded thermal power capacity, accounting for more than half of the region's total installed power-generation capacity and becoming its dominant source of electricity.
Inner Mongolia has also explored new approaches to green industrial transformation. To start with, it has developed four pathways for turning ecological value into economic value: "conserving green to exchange gold", "adding green to increase gold", "transforming green into gold", and "green capital".
It has also explored eight models: covering ecological restoration, ecological agriculture, ecotourism, ecological industries, "ecology plus" integrated industries, ecological markets, ecological finance and ecological compensation.
Third, it has pursued shared development to promote common prosperity through ecological conservation.
As it advances ecological conservation and green development, Inner Mongolia has placed strong emphasis on ensuring that ecological progress contributes to common prosperity. The income gap between urban and rural residents narrowed to 2.21 times in 2025, below the national average.
Two forms of compensation and two driving forces have become important elements of Inner Mongolia's experience in promoting ecological prosperity. The region has actively provided compensation to registered poor households employed as ecological forest rangers, as well as compensation for forest ecological benefits. It has also used major forestry ecological projects and green industries that benefit local communities to create employment and increase incomes.
The work-relief program is another important element of Inner Mongolia's approach to achieving common prosperity through ecological conservation. In desertification-control projects, it is stipulated that at least 10 percent of project funds are directly paid to farmers and herders as labor remuneration. This allows people living in the desertified areas to earn a tangible income from desertification control while taking on dual responsibilities for both land restoration and long-term maintenance.
Farmers and herders have thus moved from being bystanders in desertification control to becoming its principal participants, effectively increasing the incomes of people who have emerged from poverty.
Integrated management of forests and grasslands, deserts and water ecosystems requires systemic innovation. Ecological governance cannot succeed through a single technology, institution or policy. It requires a combination of green technological innovation, green institutional innovation and innovative approaches to environmental governance.
Inner Mongolia is vigorously promoting green technological innovation — using technological advances such as integrated space-air-ground monitoring, big-data-based smart management and control, and systematic ecological risk prevention and control to provide technological support for building a beautiful Inner Mongolia.
The region has launched major science and technology demonstration projects in ecological security, including the smart simulation and application demonstration of water ecological and environmental systems in the Yellow River Basin and the research, development and application of technologies for ecological restoration and functional improvement in Ulansuhai Nur.
Second, Inner Mongolia is vigorously promoting green institutional innovation. The region has formulated and issued an outline to strengthen the legal foundation for integrated governance of forests and grasslands, water ecosystems and deserts. It has enacted regulations on grassland-livestock balance, revised regulations on wetland protection and enacted regulations on desertification control.
Third, Inner Mongolia is innovating its approach to green governance. It has revised its list of responsibilities of relevant departments for ecological and environmental protection, reinforcing the principle that whoever oversees development, production and industry must also oversee environmental protection.
The region is actively developing a framework featuring Party leadership, government guidance, enterprises taking primary responsibility and public participation. It has established checks and balances by making ecological and environmental protection and ecological and environmental monitoring relatively independent of one another.
Inner Mongolia continues to innovate its ecological governance models. In desertification control, it has adopted a strategy of "blocking the periphery, penetrating the hinterland, dividing the desert by roads, managing it in sections, supporting with technology, and driving with industries". It pursues a combined approach centered on roads, electricity, water, communications, networks and vegetation.
These efforts have ultimately helped create desert oases and localized ecological microclimates, leading to improvements in vegetation, rainfall and biodiversity.
The 15th Five-Year Plan period will be a crucial period for Inner Mongolia as it moves toward basically completing the construction of a beautiful Inner Mongolia.
By 2030, Inner Mongolia is expected to have a stronger ecological security foundation, better environmental quality and more beautiful ecological landscapes. Its ecological economy will become the dominant force, green energy will set a national benchmark, and green innovation will become a fundamental driver of development. Ecological culture will flourish, the ecological economy will become more coordinated, and green common prosperity will advance further.
Through systematic governance, Inner Mongolia is poised to become a distinctive model of the Beautiful China initiative, a place where ecological conservation, green development and shared prosperity reinforce one another.
The author is director of the Institute of Ecological Civilization at Zhejiang A&F University.
The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.
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