'The Green Wall Of China'

"Officials in Inner Mongolia say they have established a living barrier of trees, grass and shrubs wide enough to hold back the Gobi desert and to curb the sandstorms blowing over northeast Asia and hitting the United States...the desert has been marching southeast at a rate of three kilometres a year heading directly for Beijing...Millions of trees have been planted and grass seeds dropped from airplanes, while herdsmen have been banned from fragile grassland and thousands of families have been relocated from distressed areas...But sceptics say the root of the problem, overpopulation and unsustainable development, has not been addressed by a narrow corridor of grass and trees."