Burying the past, to plant a greener vision of the future

Once semi-barren hills have been regenerated by getting farmers to go green. Li Lei and Huo Yan report from Yan'an, Shaanxi province.

By 1998, the mountain village of Nangou in the northwestern city of Yan'an, Shaanxi province, was on the brink of environmental collapse. Decades of intensive farming and overgrazing had stripped the village of nearly all its vegetation, worsening the naturally semi-barren landscape.

In summer, frequent flash floods posed great risks to both villagers and crops in the ravine, while raging sandstorms during the rest of the year led to poor crop yields.