“The wind blows all the year round, not a bird in the sky nor a leaf can be found.” This saying, once common in northwest China’s arid Ningxia Hui autonomous region, captures the suffering inflicted on its communities by the desert.
Over the past 40 years, the Baijitan National Nature Reserve has served as a frontline fortification against the Mu Us Desert for Ningxia’s capital Yinchuan and its nearly 3 million people.
By the 1950s, the desert had advanced to within 5km (3 miles) of the Yellow…