The Hanggin Banner section of the Kubuqi Desert, which is the seventh largest desert in China, has seen remarkable progress made as a result of environmental and ecological restoration efforts conducted in recent years.

The once-barren land -- which covers an area of 18,600 square kilometers -- is located in the Ordos Plateau in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Statistics show that the Kubuqi Desert within the jurisdiction of Hanggin Banner accounts for 71 percent of the total desert area.

For a long time, the Kubuqi Desert has been continuously expanding outward, devouring pastures, cultivated land and villages.

Combined with indiscriminate man-made deforestation and overgrazing, this has led to grassland degradation and land desertification, forcing many people to leave their homes and migrate to other places.

But since the early 1950s, Hanggin Banner has embarked on the path to remedial desert treatment by planting trees and plants.

To date, more than 6,000 sq km of land in the Kubuqi Desert in the jurisdiction of Hanggin Banner has turned green.

The Kubuqi Desert has become the only desert in the world to be successfully tamed and it has been designated by the United Nations Environment Programme as a global desert eco-economic demonstration area.

The Kubuqi sand control model was summarized at the 13th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification -- held in Ordos in 2017 -- as providing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions for other desertification areas around the world.  

Hanggjin Banner is widely said to have achieved a historic change of moving from sands forcing people to retreat to retreating sands and incoming greenery. In 2018, the banner was granted an honorary title based on China’s national environmental precept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”.