Green development in Gobi Desert

Shiliuyun-Xinjiang Daily (Reporter Bai Sujun) news: Sweltering summer heat blankets every stretch of land. The Ganjiahu Saxoul Forest National Nature Reserve (hereinafter referred to as Ganjiahu Reserve) sits in the southwestern Junggar Basin within northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Lush greenery fills every line of sight here. Unbroken saxoul woodlands extend for miles on end, towering Euphrates poplars rise skyward, red willows drift softly in the wind, and birds chirp cheerfully within the branches. A vivid, lively green landscape unfolds across the boundless desert sands.

On June 4, 2026, a team of experts from the Khorezm Mamun Academy under the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences and the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited the reserve. The group observed the on-the-ground outcomes of desert restoration, gained in-depth insights into conservation and management practices, and learned about local ecological governance approaches. They raised numerous follow-up questions to exchange know-how, and voiced strong interest in future joint cooperation.

These remarkable ecological feats, which left the foreign specialists deeply impressed, did not come easily. They are built upon the reserve staff's consistent hard work and quiet long-term dedication. Through their persistent on-the-ground efforts, the team has delivered an outstanding record of ecological progress.

In 2025, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment organized experts to carry out a special assessment of the ecological environment protection effectiveness of national nature reserves. Ganjiahu Saxoul Forest National Nature Reserve received an "excellent" rating and was recommended to be selected as a national protected area outstanding case.

Stringent conservation and management: lush greenery spreads across the Gobi Desert

Ganjiahu Reserve covers a total area of 820,000 mu (about 54,666.67 hectares), straddling Wusu City of Tacheng Prefecture and Jinghe County of Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture. After traveling over 100 kilometers from downtown Wusu, undulating desert and Gobi landscapes unfold one after another. White saxaul, Euphrates poplar and red willow grow interspersed, with diverse wild vegetation stretching in continuous tracts to form boundless green woodlands atop sand dunes. Along the drive, wild rabbits occasionally dart out from roadside thickets, birds skim low past vehicle windows, pheasants weave through the trees, and groups of Gazella subgutturosa wander leisurely. These sights abound throughout the reserve.

A group of goitered gazelles pace and look around in the Ganjiahu Saxoul Forest National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Wen Xinghua)

Safeguarding this desert woodland has never been an easy task. Hao Tuanjun, Party Branch Secretary and Director of the Ganjiahu Reserve Management Center, stated that in recent years, the reserve has rigorously enforced the closed-loop management rule that "every stand of forest has a caretaker, and every task comes with clear accountability". It has steadily established a multi-layered conservation and management system integrating legal guarantees, on-site staff postings and coordinated ecological projects, providing all-round protection for local ecological resources and forming an ecological security barrier focused on preserving, expanding and stabilizing green cover.

"The reserve is equipped with sophisticated monitoring devices that transmit precise data round the clock. Complemented by ground patrols, drone aerial surveys and fixed-point infrared camera monitoring, these tools have greatly boosted management efficiency and early risk warning capacity," said Daoliken Jieshanbayi, an ecological forest ranger with 41 years of service at the reserve. Thanks to the persistent dedication of successive generations of rangers, local ecological conditions keep improving, and the desert grows greener by the year.

Swans lead their young in shallow water at a wetland in the Ganjiahu Saxoul Forest National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on June 2, 2026. (Photo by Wen Xinghua)

Li Shu, station chief of Wudaoquan Central Conservation Station under the Jinghe Branch of Ganjiahu Reserve Administration, recalled that the reserve has fully carried out the grazing withdrawal and wetland restoration program starting from 2017. A series of measures have been implemented to lift the reserve's vegetation coverage: grazing prohibition within designated project zones, construction of buried water storage tanks, supplementary planting in sparsely vegetated and ecologically fragile zones, manual seeding of saxaul and red willow seeds, and regular ecological water replenishment.

"All conservation stations take the standardized development of flower gardens, vegetable plots and fruit orchards as a core starting point. We keep upgrading food and accommodation conditions for ecological rangers, improve salary security, standardize unified conservation management rules, and roll out a cross-station joint patrol mechanism. All staff pull together to consolidate grassroots work and build a tighter full-coverage protection network for forest and grassland resources across the reserve," said Li Ran, deputy director of the Wusu Branch of Ganjiahu Reserve Administration.

Thanks to targeted policy implementation and systematic ecological governance, vegetation coverage of saxaul, camel thorn and other plant species in the reserve has risen steadily, while habitats for wild fauna and flora keep improving.

Eliminating fire hazards: building a safe line for the desert

The vitality of the forest depends on the day-and-night protection of forest firefighters. The Ganjiahu Reserve has a temperate continental arid climate, with little rain all year round. There are many dead branches and leaves on the ground. Spring brings frequent sandstorms, and summer is hot. A tiny spark can easily spread quickly with the wind, bringing safety risks to the whole forest area.

"In the early years, conditions were hard. The reserve lacked water and had poor roads. If a fire broke out, ecological rangers had to run on foot to put it out, which was risky and slow to respond," said Ailihazi Ye'erkenhazi, captain of the emergency response team of the Wusu Branch of the Ganjiahu Reserve Administration. To completely change this situation, the Ganjiahu Reserve set up a special emergency response team, assigned fire prevention tasks to each grassroots management station, and included routine hazard inspections and fire source control in daily patrol work.

To solve the problem of getting water in the desert forest area, reserve technicians made plans based on local conditions and built a reserve-wide emergency water supply network. Currently, 46 emergency water source sites have been built. In addition, 55 underground water storage tanks have been placed in areas with dense vegetation and high fire risk, and 81 kilometers of fire access roads have been built to keep emergency rescue routes clear, fully opening up the "lifeline" for emergency response. For fire source control, each checkpoint in the forest area is staffed 24 hours a day to strictly control who enters the reserve. "Only by preventing problems before they happen can we keep the forest area safe," said Haishar Delamulati, a member of the emergency response team.

In addition, the Ganjiahu Reserve keeps revising and improving various emergency response plans for sudden events, insists on doing monthly safety inspections, regularly checks management houses, fire prevention supplies, mechanical and electrical equipment, and field operation points, and actively reaches out to surrounding towns, villages, and neighboring units to sign fire prevention joint defense agreements. It carries out irregular cross-inspections, opens up cross-regional coordinated management channels, and keeps improving fire source control measures.

Under regular fire prevention publicity and guidance, the fire awareness of residents in surrounding areas has greatly increased. Herders who find fire hazards or suspicious people immediately report to the management station. This linked fire prevention system has helped the Ganjiahu Reserve achieve a good situation of no fires and no safety accidents all year round.

Filling gaps: dynamic management with no blind spots

Ganjiahu Reserve spans a wide expanse with diverse landforms. To address blind zones in manual patrol work, the reserve has fully rolled out an intelligent patrol framework integrating drones, high-altitude cloud monitoring and ground patrols. Staff adhere to a round-the-clock on-duty system, which effectively offsets the limitations of manual inspections and enables full-coverage, gap-free dynamic management across remote Gobi zones.

To precisely track ecological shifts, the reserve has continuously upgraded its intelligent monitoring network. Bird monitoring stations and environmental parameter monitoring stations have been constructed, alongside 43 permanent sample plots dedicated to saxaul and white saxaul communities, 77 infrared cameras, and eight automated weather and soil monitoring stations. The facility setups cover eight core monitoring modules: meteorology, water quality, soil, groundwater, sand flux and plant phenology, supporting automatic data collection, real-time data transmission and dynamic data analysis.

Bainiaohu Wetland in the Ganjiahu Saxoul Forest National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on June 6, 2026. (Photo by Wen Xinghua)

Thanks to the continuously improved ecological monitoring and management system, the ecological environment of the Ganjiahu Reserve has steadily gotten better. In 2025, the reserve's air quality excellence rate reached 99.18 percent. Days with sand and dust weather dropped significantly compared to previous years, and the local climate continued to improve. A set of monitoring data directly shows the rich results of ecological improvement: from 2014 to 2024, the natural vegetation coverage in the reserve rose from 64 percent to 78.89 percent, the number of vascular plant species increased from 448 to 529, and the number of vertebrate species increased from 178 to 241.

The improving ecology has also attracted various wild animals to appear often: mute swans, black storks, and ruddy shelducks gather in artificial wetlands; red deer and goitered gazelles stroll through the forest; and once-rare wild medicinal plants are now growing and reproducing vigorously.

"Standing before the large monitoring screen, we have a full view of activity across the entire forest zone. Our conservation work has become much more precise and efficient," said Dawuli Kanjiabai, station chief of the Sanpai Central Conservation Station under the Wusu Branch of the Ganjiahu Reserve Administration. Empowered by technology, forest management has shifted from traditional manual patrols to targeted and intelligent operations. The station has also built a 348.8-square-meter science education exhibition hall, which uses specimen displays, sand table simulations and brochure distribution to raise public awareness of desert ecological protection. Today, more and more local farmers and herders voluntarily serve as volunteer advocates.

Hao Tuanjun stated that going forward, the Ganjiahu Reserve will continue to enhance its full-area intelligent monitoring network, actively advance the construction of infrastructure, including water supply and drainage, power, transportation and telecommunications, and steadily carry out desertification control and ecological restoration. Meanwhile, the reserve will cooperate with research institutions to further ecological research, make regular use of its science education venues to conduct ecological outreach, and gather strength from all sectors to strengthen the ecological security barrier.

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