Haixi: Pioneer of a Workable Plan for Ecological, Economic and Social Development

During his inspection tour of Qinghai Province in August this year Chinese President Xi Jinping observed that “the most valuable part of Qinghai is its ecology, in which lie the province’s most important responsibility and biggest potential.” President Xi has repeatedly stressed that ecological preservation is in the interest of a society’s long-term and overall development.

Effective Desertification Control

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a place of great natural beauty with its magnificent landscape and untouched environment. Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, is north of the plateau. Most of Haixi is in the Qaidam Basin, with the Altun and Qilian mountains to its north and the Kunlun Mountain to its south. The region is within easy reach of Gansu, Xinjiang, and Tibet.

The goji berry cultivation base.

The Qaidam Basin, one of the eight biggest deserts in China, is Qinghai’s largest area of desert, and also the hardest to control. Between 2011 and 2015, Haixi prevented and controlled 130,000 hectares of desertification, and reclaimed 147,000 hectares of sandy land, thereby increasing forest coverage and decreasing the amount of desert. These efforts have stopped Haixi from being plagued by a vicious circle, in which ecological management is followed by further damage.

In seeking to develop an economy that prevents and controls desertification and blazes a trail for local farmers and herdsmen to prosper, Haixi has discovered a workable plan – nurturing and developing the goji berry industry.