“In 2004, some experts said that if desertification continued at the current speed, Minqin oasis would run out of groundwater in 17 years and the two deserts would merge.”  

Han Jierong was shocked by the news online that the oasis in his hometown was disappearing and the sand was encroaching it. As a student at Lanzhou University at the time, he made a decision right away. He applied for a domain name, created a webpage, and gave the website the name of “Saving Minqin”.  

Minqin County of Gansu Province lies northeast of the Hexi Corridor on the lower reaches of the Shiyang River. Bounded by the Tengger and Badain Jaran deserts in the east, west and north, the wedge-shaped oasis in Minqin was once a natural barrier in the path of the encroaching sand on China’s northwest line.  

Since the 1950s, however, as water from the upper reaches of the Shiyang River decreased year by year, compounded with the over-exploitation of groundwater in Minqin oasis, a large amount of vegetation was dying out and the local ecosystem was deteriorating rapidly.  

“We must do something for our hometown, or else we will be homeless and become environmental refugees.” For Han Jierong, saving Minqin oasis means saving his hometown. Therefore, the fight against desertification, a process of turning the desert into an oasis in Guodong Village began and has continued to this day.  

The First Saxaul Sapling Planted  

In 2004 when a TV program predicted that Minqin would disappear and become the second Lop Nor, this small county in northwest China was brought to the public attention. Where would Minqin end up also became an unavoidable concern for people in Minqin and even for the entire country.  

The “Saving Minqin” website was set up right after Han watched the program in April, 2004. Initially it consisted of only eight Chinese characters saying “let’s fulfill our responsibilities to protect our hometown”, followed by a message board. However, despite its poor design, the number of visitors was remarkable.  

Ma Junhe, a native of Guodong Village in Minqin County, once worked outside his hometown almost all year round. When he first learned from news that Minqin may disappear, he was shocked into silence. He would rather believe the news were fake, and he kept looking for more information about Minqin online. Then, like many others, Ma came across the “Saving Minqin” website and engaged in heated discussions. Through the internet, Ma Junhe and Han Jierong became acquainted and later became partners in planting saxaul trees. Then, they met more people and together, they have been fighting to protect Minqin till today.  

Ideas kept popping up in the online discussions, but few offered feasible solutions. In the end, they reached a consensus that if Minqin oasis disappeared, it would directly threaten the security of the Hexi Corridor, China’s western strategic corridor and the core of the Silk Road.  

Han Jierong and Ma Junhe clicked and decided to return to Minqin to plant saxaul. “As Minqin-born youth, we must do our best to avoid regret. We don’t know whether Minqin will disappear in 17 years. That’s a question for the future.” Ma and his friends just had such pure thoughts at that time. 

Building on the website, Han Jierong and Ma Junhe established the Saving Minqin Volunteers Association in June 2006. They also rode their motorcycles for field trips in the next Spring Festival to find suitable areas for afforestation. Later on, Ma contracted 400 mu (approximately 26.7 hectares) of land in his name and began his “march” into the desert. They organized volunteers through their website and social media, and successfully planted the first saxaul sapling in Guodong Village.  

Ma recalls that the first saxaul sapling was planted on April 15th. More than 30 volunteers brought tools and drove over 350 kilometers from Lanzhou to Minqin. The next day, they spent a whole morning and completed planting over 10,000 saxaul. 

Among this group are veterans in wheelchairs, senior people with gray hair, and toddlers who help their parents carry saplings even before they are able to walk steadily on their own. Many of the volunteers came after they read the news, and their enthusiasm touched Ma deeply.  

The Counterforce for Desertification: Oasis  

From the Internet to the real world, Han Jierong and Ma Junhe were making more trips to the desert, and problems also arose. Han said since they spent all their spare time on this public welfare undertaking, their life and work were affected.  

In December 2007, the Key Management Plan for the Shiyang River Basin was approved by the State Council to encourage farmers to develop water-efficient agriculture and desert industry. Local authority also became increasingly determined to combat desertification.  

 “Someone has to step up and fully engage in it.” Ma resigned from his sales position at a pharmaceutical company and devoted himself to the desertification control and afforestation.  

 “Reality and ideal are very far apart and the real world can be cruel.” Ma added that volunteers’ passion faded over time, and raising fund was also a challenge. His savings from previous job were all invested in saxaul planting. In those days, he often ran into the desert and sat for half a day, gazing at little saxaul trees that were less than knee-high, and sometimes even shed tears.  

One year after returning home for planting saxauls, Ma decided to once again “escape” from Minqin. He packed and left for Lanzhou in search of jobs.  

Coincidentally, in the afternoon of April 24th when Ma arrived at Lanzhou and met Han Jierong, a severe sandstorm came with the wind reaching Grade 10 and 11 on the Beaufort scale. The sandstorm cut a swath from the west to the east and lasted for more than three hours in Minqin. Thousands of greenhouses were destroyed, and tens of thousands of hectares of crops were wiped out. That night, neither of them slept. They kept posting real-time updates about Minqin’s situation on major portals, which drew the attention of the entire nation.  

Fortunately, the efforts were not in vain. “Shortly after that, colleagues from Hangzhou Daily came to us and helped launch a campaign called Saving Minqin Through Saxaul Planting.” Ma said. Many Hangzhou citizens supported the campaign by donating funds or participating in tree-planting activities in Minqin. As a result, a total of 120 mu (8 hectares) of saxauls were planted within a year in the little county. 

Encouraged by the support of Hangzhou Daily and the enthusiasm of the public, Ma finally made up his mind to stay in Minqin and continue his fight against desertification. 

Since 2011, Tencent Foundation, Narada Foundation and many other public welfare organizations have also participated in the endeavor. Today, a number of projects have been implemented, including the voluntary tree-planting project in Guodong Village, the online tree-planting initiative Our Village, Our Hometown, as well as the innovative campaign All-round Ecological Conservation for Minqin. Efforts to save Minqin from desertification are on a smooth track.  

Previously, Han Jierong and Ma Junhe set the standard costs at 10 yuan for one saxaul sapling and 700 yuan for one mu (0.067 hectares) of saxaul forest for their tree-planting activities. Now, the standard they set on the basis of sheer practical experience has become the standard for all online tree-planting campaigns. Their efforts have proved the viability of a new public welfare model, in which social organizations use the Internet to promote afforestation, prevent desertification and ensure the model’s sustainability through continuous innovation. The voluntary campaign Oasis Action for Minqin has also become a role model for Chinese public welfare organizations to combat desertification.  

No Locals, No Saxauls 

New saxaul saplings look like nothing but grasses, but when they grow into trees, they can be 5 to 8 meters tall. The saxauls can deeply root in the desert, like a guard against encroaching sandstorms. According to the statistics of Han Jierong and his team, the survival rate of saxauls in the voluntary tree-planting project in Guodong Village can be as high as 65% to 91%. 

Standing against the wind and basking in the sun, the saxauls strive to seek water for their survival in the desert. Similarly, Ma Junhe is also looking for a way to make a living there. For him, only by ensuring the survival of saxauls can the desertification be slowed down, and only by boosting the saxaul industry, can the population drain in Minqin be halted to eradicate the roots of poverty in the area.  

 “Planting saxauls is not lucrative. Unlike pine trees or poplars which can be cut into lumber, saxauls can only be used as firewood, if not buried in the desert forever.” Several years ago, Ma Junhe learnt the planting technique of cistanche deserticola after knowing that the plant could grow on saxauls. But when he tried to sell cistanche deserticola products on e-commerce platforms, the business didn’t take off due to logistics, settlement and many other reasons. 

In order to find high-quality products to sell, Ma and his team visited every village in Minqin, and selected and cultivated 16 varieties of featured agricultural products in two years. They registered a bunch of trademarks such as Saxaul Farm, and promoted their products through e-commerce platforms. In this process, they built up the brand of desert products little by little, and finally secured a good price for the featured agricultural products grown on the edge of the desert. Driven by the Rural Youth E-commerce Cultivation Project of Gansu Province, Ma also hammered out an e-commerce assistance plan and signed off-take contracts with 152 agricultural households.  

In front of the camera, Ma often introduces Mr. Sandy Melon with his strong northwestern accent. Mr. Sandy Melon is not only his WeChat alias, but also the honeydew melon brand that he built and promoted online.  

Minqin has a long history of growing honeydew melon, and that’s part of the reason why Ma chose the fruit as his trump card. In 2017, Mr. Sandy Melon was launched on e-commerce platforms and soon gained great popularity. Five hundred tons of honeydew melons were sold within a year, bringing over 2 million yuan of income for local farmers.  

Ma also initiated a campaign, in which every time consumers buy a box of honeydew melons from Mr. Sandy Melon, a saxaul will be planted for free on their behalf in Minqin. “It’s like crowdfunding. The pre-sales of the honeydew melons can amount to hundreds of thousands yuan, and the funds for saxaul-planting come right from the donation of consumers.”  

“The retail price of honeydew melons has risen from 50 or 60 cents per jin (0.5 kilos) to 1.5 yuan per jin.” Ma explained that, for local farmers, higher incomes mean less pressure from desertification. On the one hand, with the increase in per unit output value, farmers don’t need to struggle for a living by exploiting new land or digging new wells; on the other hand, with better livelihoods, more locals will stay in Minqin, solving the problems of poor living conditions and ecological deterioration at one go. When ecological conservation can be turned into a business, people in Minqin will be able to truly eliminate the root causes of desertification. 

For Ma Junhe, it’s crystal clear that improving the livelihoods of local people is the only way to build their confidence in the area, make them stay and build real oasis.  

With Continuous Efforts, Minqin Will Never Die Out  

During the interview, Han Jierong showed us two maps with blocks colored yellow and green, which mark the planning and completed forests under the framework of voluntary projects. The forest in the east is in Jiahe Town, while the one in the west is in Changning Town. 

Since 2007, Han and his team have designated six places in Minqin County as voluntary tree-planting bases, where 62,000 mu (4,129 hectares) of saxauls and other trees are planted. The bases have effectively addressed the moving dunes around 12 villages, protecting nearly 10,000 villagers from the threats of quicksand.  

The combat against desertification is still going on. Planting saxauls to enhance sand control in spring and autumn, helping local farmers sell honeydew melons in summer, and heading to southern China to raise funds and help cooperative members promote wolfberry and cynomorium songaricum in winter have become Ma Junhe’s yearly routine.   

Han Jierong told us that they are about to develop a real-life display platform for desert management in Minqin County based on GIS and drone aerial photography with the funds from Tencent Foundation and Narada Foundation. With the platform, volunteers and donors can check how their trees are doing through a mini-app in WeChat called “One Person, One Tree”. Meanwhile, Ma Junhe and Han Jierong are also working with multiple institutions to develop an automatic tree-planting robot to reduce the costs of sand control.  

Despite hesitation and evasion in earlier days, Han Jierong and Ma Junhe eventually chose persistence and hard work on the journey of saving Minqin. Today, Han is still keeping his first-time chat record with Ma. He told us with a smile that he might write a memoir after getting old. Now he still takes out the record and reads it from time to time, only to remind himself not to forget the original aspiration of restoring the ecology in his hometown.  

The fight against desertification features prominently in the history of Minqin. In Heroes Against Desertification, the third section of the exhibition in the Minqin Memorial Hall for Desertification Control, the stories of locals in Minqin combatting desertification are well recorded. “The first batch of anti-desertification heroes is represented by Xue Wanxiang and Yang Kechang, while for the second batch is Shi Shuzhu. There is no particular representative for the third batch, and Han Jierong and I are just in the fourth batch.” Ma Junhe said. 

When asked about the difference between his predecessors and him, Ma told us it was the Internet and market-oriented approaches which have mobilized more forces in the society and fostered public awareness of sand control from not only Minqin County, but also the whole of China and even the whole world. “Making an analogy: a drop of water can be easily evaporated by the sunlight if it’s on land, but now we have put this drop of water into the ocean. Anyone who cares about desertification control and is willing to participate can come to join us here in Minqin.” 

Today, the story of Majunhe has also been presented in the Memorial Hall. As the introductory text goes, the scenes show how Ma Junhe, a local young man, has been using the ‘Internet + Sand Control’ model since 2009 to attract more than 50,000 volunteers from all over the world to plant more than 40,000 mu (2,664 hectares) of trees in Minqin, thus creating a new path of sand control by mobilizing more forces in the society.”  

At the entrance of Minqin County, the mantra of “Minqin Must Not Become Another Lop Nur” remains striking, but 18 years have passed since the news coverage about the possible disappearance of Minqin came out for the first time.  

So whether or not Minqin will be buried in the sand? The saxauls planted by Han Jierong and Ma Junhe might have already provided the answer.