Reference News Network, November 12 report: Brazil's "Fórum" magazine website published an article on November 10 with the title "COP30: What Can Brazil Learn from China to Restore Degraded Areas," authored by Yara Vidal. The article is translated as follows:

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) opened in Belém, Brazil on October 10, focusing on a crucial theme: how to restore the Earth that nourishes us.

Faced with increasingly severe soil degradation and desertification, Brazil has officially launched the "Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation" initiative (RAIZ initiative). This initiative is an international platform aimed at restoring degraded agricultural land and mobilizing financial and technological resources globally.

According to the United Nations, about 2 billion hectares of land have been degraded globally, affecting 3.2 billion people. According to data from the Global Forest Watch website, 10 million hectares of forests disappear each year, and in 2024 alone, 6.7 million hectares of primary tropical forests disappeared.

China has now become a global leader in large-scale ecological restoration. China has committed to restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030. China's environmental policies began forming in the 1970s, when issues such as sandstorms, floods, and soil erosion prompted people to rethink a new vision for sustainable development. It was in this context that China launched its first large-scale ecological restoration projects, including one of the largest environmental engineering projects in modern history, known as the "Green Great Wall," the "Sanbei" Shelterbelt Forest Project.

The Sanbei Project was officially launched in 1978, aiming to curb desertification and reduce sandstorms that frequently affected northern China.

The name of the project comes from the three regions it covers: Northwest, North, and Northeast, while the term "Green Great Wall" is a metaphor for the ancient Chinese Great Wall used for territorial defense. Today, this new "Green Great Wall" plays a different role: it forms an ecological barrier that prevents wind and sand, protects soil and cities.

The implementation period of this project will continue until 2050, with the goal of creating a forest and green belt stretching approximately 4,500 kilometers. So far, the project has covered more than 40% of China's land area, playing a crucial role in increasing China's forest coverage. It is considered the largest ecological intervention in human history.

However, during the early stages of the plan, there were some problems, such as planting single, non-native tree species in arid areas, leading to low survival rates of trees. To address this, the Chinese government promptly adjusted the project plan, prioritizing the planting of native tree species, natural recovery, and sustainable water resource management.

Today, the "Green Great Wall" is regarded as a symbol of China's ecological civilization. Ecological civilization is the core concept of China's environmental policy, aiming to coordinate the relationship between economic development, climate security, and environmental protection.

Another important milestone in China's environmental construction is the "Returning Farmland to Forest and Grassland" program. This program was initiated after the 1998 Yangtze River basin flood. Through this program, China has restored steep slope farmland into forests and pastures, reduced soil erosion, and restored degraded ecosystems.

In recent decades, China has shifted from passive disaster response to comprehensive ecosystem planning. The "National Major Plan for the Protection and Restoration of Important Ecosystems (2021-2035)" laid the foundation for a new phase.

This plan envisions strategic ecological restoration actions in key areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins, the northern arid regions, and the northeastern forest belt, to build an interconnected, ecologically resilient national ecological network.

China has also invested in developing remote sensing technology, big data, and artificial intelligence for monitoring ecosystems and predicting natural disasters, building an integrated "land-air-sea" climate observation system.

China's actions have proven that economic growth and natural environment restoration can be balanced.

Beijing has consolidated decades of experience in afforestation and ecosystem management, while Brazil, through the RAIZ initiative, has proposed establishing a global alliance to promote land restoration and food security.

Both initiatives are rooted in the same belief: the balance between humans and nature will be the core of development in the 21st century. (Translated by Wang Meng)

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7571732856020517428/

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