Shi Guangyin inspects the woods he planted earlier at Langwo Sand in Dingbian county, Shaanxi province, on May 30, 2020. (LIU XIAO / XINHUA)

Sitting on a dry and barren stretch of land that was filled with the scorched remnants of once green saplings, Shi Guangyin felt so frustrated that he could barely hold himself together as he gazed at the sandy landscape one afternoon in the winter of 1987. 

The sandy expanse, known as Langwo Sand, in Northwest China’s Shaanxi province was notorious for complex terrain and harsh environment. The surface temperature can reach as high as 60 degrees Celsius during summer or as low as minus 40 degrees in winter. So, one can imagine how difficult it is to plant trees in the soil there.

Shi, an ecological guardian in Shaanxi’s Dingbian county, had sought to get rid of the area’s root cause of poverty, which was identified as desertification. Of all the saplings that local farmers, led by Shi, planted on 3,900 hectares of Langwo Sand in 1987, only one fifth survived. The rest, 80 percent of them, were all destroyed by sandstorms that year.

In 1986, things were even worse, as only one tenth of the planted saplings survived the 11 sandstorms during that year.

This had grown into the most serious challenge that Shi ever faced during his sand control mission. “How could I face all the farmers who devoted all their effort into planting the saplings? How could we shoulder such a huge economic loss suffered from the total failure?” he recalled.

What Shi, who was then in his mid-thirties, most feared was losing the trust of the farmers who had followed him without hesitation. The farmers had put in so much efforts and endured a lot of trouble, as well as physical pain, as they worked very hard to plant the saplings in spring and summer. “I had assured them that this would not happen anymore, so they believed me. So now how can I explain and persuade them to try another time?”

Shi, who had some initial victory in planting saplings in the sand land around the year 1985, had big ambitions and signed a contract for sand control on 1,000 plots of the barren land the next year. But he failed twice in a row.

“This came as a disappointment for some and they abandoned the work. But for me, I would rather die in the desert than quit,” Shi said.

Deep in his heart, Shi knew that he had to carry on even after repeated failures, as he had been dedicated to battling the sand since he was young. 

When he was seven, one day Shi was happily on his way to herd his goats along with a neighbor, a 5-year-old boy.

While they were roaming around on the borderless grassland that looked tranquil and beautiful, they were not aware that some imminent danger lay ahead.

Suddenly, the blue, clear sky became dull and everything turned grey. A sandstorm came abruptly. The wind was so strong and fast that Shi was blown off his track.

Herdsmen later hurried to search for the lost kids. Shi was saved when his father discovered him several days later at a location several kilometers away from the kids’ original path.

Nonetheless, Shi’s friend could not be found anywhere. “His body perhaps got buried somewhere under the sand,” recalled Shi.

Shi, now 69, still chokes with emotion as he recalls those distressing moments from his childhood. His family, from Yulin city — which is located on the edges of the Maowusu Desert — has such grief-filled moments in common with many others living in the area. 

In the early decades after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, environmental degradation made life near the desert increasingly harsh. Sandstorms inundated the area, forcing the residents to abandon their homes and farmland. Shi’s family moved nine times during his childhood.

As he grew up, Shi swore that he would take up the challenge of preventing sandstorms. “Over the decades, I planted countless trees and gradually fell in love with those green lives. They are brave and strong, like our (Communist Party of China) members,” he said.

Dingbian sits on the edge of the Maowusu Desert — one of four major deserts in China, covering an area of 42,200 square kilometers and stretching from Ordos in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region to Yulin in Shaanxi province. The name Maowusu comes from Mongolian, meaning “bad water”, and rightly so as the desert contains vast stretches of wasteland with oases of saline-alkali water.

In the 1950s, China began to promote forest conservation nationwide and started large-scale afforestation. In 1984, when the central government issued a policy to support afforestation projects in North China, aiming to curb desertification and soil erosion, Shi was in the prime of his life.

He resigned his position as head of a township-owned farm and signed a contract with the township government to control 200 hectares of sand, and become China’s first contractor planting trees in the barren desert in a bid to curb sandstorms.

To recruit helpers, he went into nearly every household and eventually brought together seven families to undertake the work. To persuade people, he told them: “If we are to lead a better life, we must bring the sand around us under control.”

But it was a hard start for Shi and his six partners. “We seven families could only collect 750 yuan ($120), but the cost of buying saplings was more than 100,000 yuan,” Shi said.

He sold all 84 of his sheep and a mule to obtain about 10,000 yuan. “I opposed his selling livestock to collect money for the sand-controlling project because I was afraid that he would fail and we would have nothing to live on,” said Shi’s wife, Gao Shengfang. 

“My husband is the master in our traditional Chinese farmer’s family, and I could do nothing to stop him.”

Shi had enough money for his greening project after he took out loans from rural credit unions.

Later, he set up a sand-controlling company, Dingbian Sand Control Co Ltd, the nation’s first such firm established by a farmer, and began a lifelong career in regreening. 

More than 100 farmers joined him to “march into Maowusu for a greener future”. Green saplings were planted in the sand and grew properly. With the help of rains, about 87 percent of the saplings survived.

Zhu Anjun, who was an accountant at the company at that time, recalled: “The successful experience was highly praised by the Shaanxi government and Shi shared his experience with fellow villagers.”

But, they faced a setback in their subsequent efforts in 1987.

“Almost everyone in our company lost confidence, but Shi asked us not to give up and studied tree planting technology hard,” said Zhao Shuanwa, an employee of Shi’s company.

Shi persuaded his team to try one more time, and later made several trips to consult forestry professionals in other cities for help. Afterward, he and his farmers came up with the idea of building sandproof barriers, planting shrubs alongside the saplings to protect them.

In the spring of 1988, Shi and his planted trees achieved success with the new technology. The hard work paid off, as over 80 percent of the trees planted in Langwo Sand survived the harsh environment in Maowusu. In a few years, it witnessed the formation of its first oasis.

“We gained precious experience from the failure at the very beginning,” Shi said.

His company went on to contract more areas of barren and alkaline land. One of the locations, Haiziliang village in Bainijing town, has become a modern agricultural demonstration area. The hard work has paid off. The annual income of the village’s farmers has increased from 300 yuan in 1984 to more than 30,000 yuan ($4,646) now.

Over the years, Shi’s company turned 20,000 hectares of barren land green. Thanks to his leadership, forest coverage in Dingbian has risen from 3.8 percent in 1980 to 33.5 percent today. In total, he built a 50-kilometer-long “green Great Wall” across the south of the Maowusu Desert.

Shi’s business expanded from a tree-planting company to one of sand greening, with fruit and vegetable farming, dairy, livestock and vineyard work, which have increased locals’ incomes.

He has always attached importance to children’s initial education, so he invested 1.25 million yuan to build two primary schools.

He also established a sand-control exhibition, providing free environmental education to local people and training forestry technicians. 

“The only thing I’m devoted to in my life is anti-desertification through afforestation,” he said.

Statistics show that about 440,000 farmers like Shi in Yulin have taken more than 600,000 hectares of wasteland on lease over the decades.

Nowadays, some tourists looking for the desert may feel disappointed as the once vast Maowusu has almost disappeared from Yulin. Shi once said with a laugh: “I should have reserved a little sand for the tourists.”

In 2002, Shi was honored as the country’s first “national desertification-control hero” for his efforts.

In the same year, he was awarded the title of “outstanding farmer in the Asia-Pacific region” by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Yet a heavy loss arrived unexpectedly on the national Tree Planting Day on March 12, 2008. 

That day, Shi’s son was transporting saplings back home when a truck accident took his life. After burying his son, Shi overcame immense grief and appeared again on the “battlefield” days later. 

Under Shi’s influence, his grandson Shi Jianyang opted for forestry studies and joined the cause of tree planting upon graduation a few years ago, becoming the third generation of sand-control people from the family.

As the CPC marked its 100th anniversary this year, Shi was awarded the July 1 Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the Party to outstanding members.

He has vowed to continue his work and contribute to improving the nation’s forest quality.

Xinhua contributed to the story.