China News Service, Beijing, June 17 (Reporter Yu Lixiao) June 17 is the 26th "World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought" and the 20th year of the Beijing-Tianjin Wind and Sand Source Control Project. Overcome difficulties to control sand pits and green barren mountains. Today, in the north and west of Beijing, nearly 10 million acres of forest surround the land of Beijing, resisting the invasion of wind and sand, and protecting the capital Beijing.
At the World Conference on Combating Desertification and Desertification more than 40 years ago, Beijing was once classified as a city on the edge of desertification. During the first desertification survey in 1995, the city's desertification land area reached 870,000 mu, mainly concentrated on the banks of the Yongding River, Chaobai River and Dasha River, and the two areas of Nankou and Kangzhuang, known as the "five major sand hazard areas". It is the main local source of wind and sand in Beijing. The local people summarized it as "no wind, no sand, moving in the wind. Whenever the wind blows, crops are destroyed everywhere."
The garden green chemical man carried the sapling up the mountain. Image courtesy of Beijing Landscaping Bureau
At the same time, influenced by factors such as vegetation coverage and weather conditions in the surrounding areas, Beijing is also facing the threat of imported sandstorms from other provinces brought by wind corridors in the west and north. In 2000, Beijing suffered eight severe sandstorms and four sandstorms in just two months. At that time, Beijing was often visible in the dust.
In order to return Beijing's green sea and blue sky, a national-level ecological project aimed at containing wind and sand hazards, the Beijing-Tianjin Wind and Sand Source Control Project, was officially launched in June 2000. Mentougou, Fangshan, Changping, Pinggu, Huairou, Miyun, and Yanqing7 This project area started a hard fight between man and sand.
According to statistics, the first phase of the Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control Project took 12 years to implement a total of 7.08 million acres of afforestation and 150 million trees to build Beijing's first line of defense against wind and sand.
In 2013, the state approved the second phase of the Beijing-Tianjin Wind and Sand Source Plan. As of the end of 2019, the second phase of the project completed a total of 1,468,200 acres of afforestation, of which 399,300 acres of artificial afforestation, 411,100 acres of low-efficiency forest transformation, and 658,800 acres of mountain closure and afforestation. At the same time, the comprehensive management area of the small watershed is 748 square kilometers, the artificial grass planting is 90,000 mu, the grass seed base construction is 1,840 mu, and the ecological relocation is 14,934.
The sand has receded and the ecology is beautiful. According to the statistics of the Beijing Municipal Landscaping Bureau, as of now, the forest coverage rate of mountainous areas in the city has reached 58.8%, an increase of 19 percentage points from 2000, and the contribution rate of Beijing-Tianjin aeolian sand source control project has reached more than 90%. The project area can reduce the amount of soil and water loss by 54.3 tons per hectare every year, and the occurrence rate of mountain flood and debris flow disasters is significantly reduced. The sewage in the project area has been effectively treated, and the water quality after treatment has all reached the level III standard of surface water, and the water quality of Miyun Reservoir has remained above the level II standard for ten consecutive years.
As the ecological environment continues to improve, wild animals that have not been seen for many years have reappeared in people's fields of view. Brown horse chickens, black storks, gray cranes and other national key protected animals "live and live in peace" in the project area. Pinggu and Yanqing were also rated as national forest cities. In combination with the project in Changping District, large areas of peach and apricot are planted in the Juyongguan area of the s2 line. Every spring, a train winds through the sea of flowers. The beautiful photos of the train, the spring flowers and the majestic Great Wall burst into a red network, which is called "the train to spring" by netizens.
Large areas of forest kept out the wind and sand, and the sand and dust weather in Beijing decreased significantly.
In the 1950s, Beijing had the most serious sand and dust, with an average of 26 days in the spring; from the 1960s to the 1980s, the number of sand and dust days decreased, fluctuating between 10 and 20 days; from the 1990s to the beginning of this century The number of sand and dust days decreased significantly, around 5 to 7 days; after 2010, the average number of sand and dust days was around 3 days. Monitoring shows that in 2019, several large sand and dust weathers apparently walked around Beijing City, and the wind and sand gradually left Beijing City.
Driven by major ecological projects such as the Three North Shelterbelt and acres of acres in the plains, all the desertified land in Beijing has been converted into fixed sand land, and the five major sandstorm hazard areas have been completely eradicated. Yanqing Kangzhuang, Longqing Gorge barren beach, Mentougou Yongding River sand bunker, Changping West sand bunker, Huairou Dasha river sand bunker have all achieved afforestation. The sand bunker wasteland where the gullies were vertical and the garbage was flying has now become green. The tree-lined, flower-filled ecological landscape, some have also built country parks, attracting a large number of surrounding people and urban residents for leisure and sightseeing, further driving the social and economic development of mountainous areas. The farmers in the suburbs of Beijing not only bid farewell to the yellow sand, but also picked up a green ecological rice bowl. The local rural labor force participated in the construction and management of the project, and more than 50,000 people were employed in the Green Post, realizing the coordinated development of ecological construction and farmers' income increase.
It is understood that the second phase of the Beijing-Tianjin wind and sand source project will be completed in 2022, stitching the final layout of the mountain ecological barrier. In the next two years, another 20,000 mu of green will be added.
Compared with the first-phase project, the second-phase project pays more attention to improving forest quality, focusing on consolidating and maintaining ecological functions such as water and soil, wind protection and sand fixation, air conditioning, and carbon fixation to increase sinks. In terms of tree species selection, it will be used according to different site types in mountainous areas. Native tree species such as Chinese pine, Platycladus orientalis, larch, Yuanbaofeng, etc., protect and plant shrubs and native herbs according to local conditions. Give full play to the forest's ecological functions, improve biodiversity, and let Beijing's green "live". (Finish)