Yin Yuzhen She fought the desert and won Defeating desertification

Yin, aged 20, living on the edge of the** Mu Us Desert*, in northern China, decided, following being caught in a sandstorm, to try to reclaim the lost land taken by the desert.

It was 1986. She had moved there the previous year to live with her husband, Bai Wanxiang. It was an arranged marriage. Her father’s best friend was dying and he agreed for her to marry his son.
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She left behind her village Jinber Tang, which had green fields and wild flowers, for a dwelling in the desert, dug out of a slope, half buried in sand. Each day they had to shovel the sand from their front door to get outside.

Climate change was making things worse. She started to plant trees when he left for work to overcome her loneliness. She was delighted they survived the winter. Bai sold his goat for 600 saplings but only 10 survived. They knew nothing about growing trees. They bought more trees and learned that Mongolian pine grew better in the desert. She learned to plant shrubs which held water before planting trees. She planted willows and lost them!

Bai learned that the government had given the village 500, 000 saplings. The villagers were not interested. They had all of them. It was a round trip lasting 6 hours and took 20 days to collect all of them. It took months to plant them.
Half of them survived thanks to the rain and grew into strong trees… They named them Yin’s Forest.

As the forest grew neighbours, who originally laughed, started to plant saplings to control the sand…

TV reporters came to see the forest, followed by government officials.

Forest stratification has grown from 5.05 % in 1977 to 12.4 in 2012. Many attribute this feat to Yin.

Nearly 40 years on Yin’s Forest is nolonger a desert but a flourishing village full of colour, fruit and other different variations of wildlife.

Yin is now both a mother and grandmother but still continues to plant saplings . The trees she has planted feel like her children.

She has been nominated by the Chinese Government for a Noble Prize.
In 2020 her afforestation efforts were recognized by the Chinese Communist Party.

Sources
Wikipedia
**Earth Heroes ** by Lily Dyu and Amy Blackwell