Green Desert
Inner Mongolia's Hobq Desert creates an oasis of wealth
By Alice Grandserre
GRAZE EXPECTATIONS: Formerly barren Hobq Desert has been transformed into a fertile grassland (COURTESY OF KUBUQI ECO-CIVILIZATION ENTREPRENEURS ANNUAL CONFERENCE)
Located southwest of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Hobq Desert has become in two decades a symbol of the fight against desertification in China and a meeting place for people interested in the subject. The Hobq International Conference Center is the traditional venue of the biennial Hobq International Desert Forum launched in 2007, and other important meetings such as this year's Eco-civilization Entrepreneurs' Annual Conference, which was primarily aimed at creating synergy among Chinese private companies that can play a role in desertification control.
All these events were mainly initiated by the Elion Resources Group, a private Chinese company in Inner Mongolia.
Since the mid-1990s, the group has been working with the regional government and locals to create a giant ecological shield in the Hobq Desert. Under the leadership of its founder Wang Wenbiao, Elion has created a desertification control model with Chinese characteristics. The Hobq Model is based on available desert resources and supported by technological innovation. Its enterprise development is driven by science and technology and its large-scale desertification control is driven by industry.
With assets exceeding 100 billion yuan ($16 billion), Elion has become a key national enterprise. While the desert economy, clean energy and natural pharmaceutical products are its core industries, it is embracing new sectors and cultural tourism-related industries as well.
Green renaissance
The 18,000-square-km desert is the seventh largest in China. Land degradation started more than 2,000 years ago due to the very dry climate, wars and over-exploitation of land. The grasslands became covered with sand, bringing misery to the area's nomadic inhabitants.
Wang spent his childhood in a village on the outskirts of the Hobq Desert. For him, the sand was synonymous with pain. "I grew up eating meals with sand, and sleeping on a sand-covered bed," he said. Necessity, not choice, dictated the transformation. Though the nearest railway station lay only some 60 km away from the salt pan, the lack of roads in the desert and regular sandstorms made transportation costs go up. Most of the profit was spent in finding a way out of the desert.
The launch of a project to build the first road in the desert in 1997 with the local government's support marked the beginning of the battle against desertification in the Hobq. After the road became operational in 1999, the company realized the need for a protective barrier to prevent the sand from covering it. In this way, the afforestation program was born. At that time, the key question was what trees to plant and what technical measures to implement. Monoculture or a bad choice of plants could be catastrophic in such an environment. In the early days of the project, the drought-enduring trees planted by Elion did not survive, despite several attempts.
It made Wang realize the importance of working in cooperation with the local people and using science to develop a suitable model. After several failed attempts, the company eventually discovered that licorice was the best choice for the Hobq Desert. This very strong herb has proven to be a useful tool in sand dune stabilization. Research conducted with various Chinese and foreign research centers helped to broaden the range of harvestable plants and diversify cultivation methods.
Besides licorice, sand willows and poplars were also planted along the road network. A major advantage was that the Hobq still has water tables a few meters from the ground surface. According to Elion officials, the afforested area now covers more than 6,000 square km. In less than a decade, a company previously regarded as causing pollution has become eco-friendly, transforming an area once considered worthless into a real gem.
Elion's kingdom
Within a quarter century,
the Hobq Desert has evolved into an oasis housing three huge areas dedicated to industry, agriculture and tourism. Each area has imposing gates at the entrance with solar panels along the roads. Besides the huge operating plants in the industrial zone, there are greenhouses and laboratories dedicated to cultivation and research. In addition, there is the Eastern Elion School, built in 2009 to provide a good education to some 1,300 students.
Elion persuaded local herdsmen and farmers to lease out their land to the company. Most of them also left their traditional homes to live in the new houses built near the school. Today local residents are key players in the Hobq Desert's industrial chain, being both stakeholders in the desert and partners of Elion.
A HEARTY SMILE: He Gailan, who has worked for Elion Resources for 20 years, is thrilled to talk about the positive impact Wang Wenbiao's project has on her life (FILE)
Gao Maohu, 55, and his wife He Gailan, 49, have been cultivating licorice for Elion for over 20 years. Now their cultivation area exceeds 66 hectares, they are in charge of 100 laborers and their lifestyle has improved. Licorice is valued by the pharmaceutical industry and sells at a high price. "Before, we lived with my mother-in-law in one house. Today, we have two separate houses, a car, and can even afford the latest phones," He said. "In the past, the girls here wanted to marry men who lived outside the desert. Today, the reverse is true: Girls from outside want to marry men from the desert."
An exportable model
According to Gao, the drip irrigation method they use has been borrowed from the Israelis. Elion Resources signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel's Ben Gurion University last year for jointly establishing the Hobq Desert Research Institute in Inner Mongolia.
The company aims to increase this kind of partnership and to involve more private enterprises in its activities. While opening a discussion on investment opportunities in ecological business models at the Eco-civilization Entrepreneurs' Annual Conference, Wang Wenbiao said in his address, "We cannot rely solely on the government and citizens to solve [environmental] problems, we must also rely on companies." This means both Chinese companies and foreign ones.
Earlier, Wang said that Elion acquired new knowledge and managed to create a model of sustainable development through collaboration with countries like Japan, South Korea and the United States.
At a time when desertification is becoming a growing threat worldwide—according to a recent report of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 169 countries consider themselves affected by the phenomenon—cooperation between countries is the need of the day.
In April, the United Nations Environment Program announced that the Hobq Desert is an ecological economy demonstration zone. Wang said the Hobq could become a training center for foreign scientists, especially those from African countries affected by desertification.
The fertile lands of the Sahel—the transitional zone between the arid Sahara Desert of northern Africa and the belt of humid savannas to the south—have been invaded by sand for decades. Afforestation initiatives already exist in the region, like the Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Project, launched by the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall. Created in 2010 under the auspices of the African Union and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the agency includes 11 African countries aiming to create a 15-km wide transcontinental forest belt running from Dakar to Djibouti. Wang does not rule out the prospect of exporting the Hobq Model internationally one day.
Beijing Review
