A billion trees planted in China are slowing desert expansion, but some experts say the project may actually harm local ecosystems.

On the edge of the Tengger Desert in northern China, the wind carries a dry hiss, like sand whispering through an old radio. A line of young poplars stands in the dust, their thin trunks braced by bamboo stakes, green leaves trembling against a yellow horizon. Nearby, villagers in sun-faded jackets unload more saplings from a truck, hands moving fast, as if speed alone could keep the desert at bay. A local official poses briefly for a photo, then walks off, leaving the planters to their shovels and water buckets.

It looks like hope. It also feels strangely fragile.

China’s billion-tree wall against the sand

From space, parts of northern China today look greener than they did twenty years ago. Satellite images show bands of tree cover stretching along the rim of the Gobi and other deserts, a human-made barrier often described as a “Great Green Wall.” On the ground, people talk less romantically. They talk about dust storms that used to choke Beijing in a yellow haze, about fields buried overnight by creeping dunes, about kids walking to school with masks long before COVID.

For many of them, trees became a kind of emergency defensive line, not a slogan.

China’s massive tree-planting drive began in the late 1970s, after devastating sandstorms reached the capital and beyond. Since then, state media says, billions of trees have been planted across northern provinces like Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Gansu. Some areas that were once bare sand now show orderly belts of poplar, pine, or tamarisk, planted in neat rows like soldiers on parade.

Farmers remember when the sky turned brown every spring. Now, in some districts, those storms come less often and hit with less force.

Yet the picture is far from simple. Ecologists visiting these new forests describe plantations where many trees die after a few years, victims of poor species selection and extreme water stress. Hydrologists warn that dense plantings in dry regions can drain already fragile groundwater, starving native shrubs and grasses that actually evolved to live with the desert. The headline sounds heroic-a billion trees against the sands-but the details tell a more complicated, less comfortable story.

When “greening” the desert goes wrong

On a hot afternoon near Minqin County, where two deserts slowly squeeze a small pocket of farmland, a researcher kneels beside a cracked patch of soil. Around her, a grid of dead saplings leans like broken matches. Only a few survive, their leaves pale and curled. A villager points toward a nearby dune, dotted with low, hardy bushes that look like nothing special. Those scruffy natives, he says quietly, survived last year’s drought. The imported poplars did not.

Greening the desert, he shrugs, can sometimes feel like painting over a wound.

One widely cited study found that large-scale tree planting in parts of northern China increased vegetation cover but also reduced soil moisture deeper down. In extremely arid zones, fast-growing trees pull huge amounts of water from the ground, like deep straws stuck into an already almost-empty glass. In the short term, the land turns green. In the long term, the system can crash. Several local governments have reported mortality rates above 50% in some plantations, especially where a single species was planted in tight, uniform rows.

The numbers look impressive on paper. On the ground, they translate into ghost forests.

Ecologists say the core problem is simple: planting trees is not the same as restoring ecosystems. Desert edges are naturally covered by a patchwork of grasses, shrubs, and hardy, twisted trees that work together to slow wind and hold soil. Replacing this mix with carpets of thirsty, non-native trees can push the land past its breaking point. One plain-truth sentence many scientists repeat is: you don’t fix a broken landscape with a calculator and a planting quota. The desert is not just “empty” land waiting to be greened. It’s a living system with limits.

What a better desert forest actually looks like

Walk a few miles away from the failed plantations and the scene can change dramatically. In some pilot restoration sites, technicians plant not tall trees first, but low shrubs and bunch grasses, spaced irregularly. They add straw checkerboards across the sand-simple squares of straw pinned into the dune surface to slow the wind. Between the squares, small native species like saxaul or sea buckthorn are tucked into shallow pits that catch any rare rainfall.

The goal is not a postcard forest. It’s a rough, scruffy shield that works with the desert instead of fighting it head-on.

This slower approach frustrates some local officials under pressure to hit ambitious greening targets. Planting shrubs doesn’t look as dramatic in a photo as rows of tall trees. It also takes longer to show results. Yet people who live on these lands know speed is a tricky friend. Rush the process and you spend money, water, and human energy on trees that die as soon as the cameras turn away. We’ve all been there-that moment when short-term wins tempt us more than quiet, patient work that actually holds up five, ten, twenty years down the road.

Let’s be honest: almost nobody does this every day, weighing the next decade against tomorrow’s praise.

More and more Chinese scientists are saying the same thing out loud:

“The question is no longer how many trees we plant,” says one Beijing-based ecologist, “but where, what kind, and whether they belong there at all.”

To make sense of that shift, many point to a few simple principles:

• Plant for the climate, not the headline: Choose species adapted to very low rainfall instead of fast-growing, water-hungry trees.
• Work with native mosaics: Protect existing grasses and shrubs, then fill gaps, rather than wiping out what’s already surviving.
• Think beyond trees: Sand fixation, grazing control, and water-saving farming often bring more lasting change than more saplings.

These ideas sound modest. On a stressed landscape, modest often means survival.

Living with the desert, not just fighting it

A quiet shift is underway in parts of China’s dry north. Younger researchers talk about “nature-based solutions” instead of blunt “greening.” Some county leaders are starting to reward projects that restore wetlands and grasslands, not only forest cover. Villagers experiment with drought-tolerant crops and rotational grazing, giving patches of land time to recover instead of pushing them to the limit every season. The story moves, slowly, from conquering the desert to learning to live at its edge.

You can feel that change on a calm spring morning, when the sky over a small town stays blue instead of turning sepia with dust.

Key point	Detail	Value for the reader
Tree counts can mislead	Billions of seedlings planted doesn’t mean billions of thriving trees or healthy ecosystems	Helps you question big “green” numbers in news and policy
Right species, right place	Native shrubs and grasses often protect soil better than thirsty, non-native trees	Offers a practical lens for judging real restoration efforts
Greening vs. restoring	True recovery works with water limits, local people, and mixed landscapes	Encourages deeper conversations about climate and land, beyond feel-good slogans

FAQ

• Question 1: Are China’s tree-planting programs reducing dust storms?
  Answer 1: In some regions, yes-especially near major cities, where belts of vegetation slow wind and trap dust. At the same time, scientists say the impact is uneven and partly masked by other changes, like better land management and industrial controls on air pollution.

• Question 2: Why do some experts say large-scale planting makes ecosystems worse?
  Answer 2: Because dense plantations of a few non-native species often drain scarce water, outcompete native plants, and then die off, leaving soils even more exposed. From an ecological perspective, this can be a step backward masked by short-term greening.

• Question 3: What types of trees actually work in desert or semi-desert zones?
  Answer 3: Slow-growing, drought-adapted species that evolved in those climates, like saxaul, some local pines, tamarisk, and other hardy shrubs. They may not grow tall or fast, but they fit the water budget and local wildlife.

• Question 4: Is it better to plant nothing and leave the desert alone?
  Answer 4: In intact deserts, yes-often the best option is to protect them from overgrazing, mining, and off-road damage. On degraded edges, active restoration can help-if it respects native vegetation patterns and limited water.

• Question 5: What can other countries learn from China’s experience?
  Answer 5: That chasing huge tree numbers can backfire, and that genuine restoration demands patience, local knowledge, and humility. Big climate solutions on paper only work in real life when land, water, and people are all part of the design.