Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable. Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up a piping hot debate on the issues that Sizou in China and beyond.
I'm Nyulin. June 5th marks the celebration of World Environment Day, an annual event dedicated to raising global awareness and action for the protection of our environment.
We'll prefer a world where our lands flourish, ecosystems thrive and communities prosper.
This isn't just a dream, it's our mission.
Today, let's explore the significance of land restoration and the transformative efforts taking place around the globe, especially in China.
For this episode, I'm joined by Yushan in the studio and Steve Hatherley on the line.
Now, grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
Welcome to our educational deep dive into World Environment Day.
This annual event, hold on June 5th, is one of the world's largest platform for environmental advocacy.
This year's theme, Land Restoration, Decertification and Drought Resilience cause action to the critical issue of land degradation.
With 40% of the planet's land degraded, affecting half of the world's population, the time to act is now.
So, Yushan, to start with, what can you tell us about this special day, the World Environment Day?
Well, according to the official website of the United Nations, the World Environment Day is led by the United Nations Environmental Program or UNEP and is held annually on June 5th, ever since 1973.
And it is the largest global platform for environmental public outreach and is celebrated by millions of people across the world.
And this year, it is hosted by Saudi Arabia.
And also this year, the World Environment Day, as you mentioned earlier, Holen focuses on land restoration and holding desertification and building drought resilience under this Logan hour land, hour future.
We are generation restoration.
I'm just smiling seeing this.
It's like a shout out to a lot of young people out there.
At least that's how it impresses me.
And with a kind of like a calling for attention among younger generation that we cannot turn back time, but we can grow forests, we can revive water sources and bring back soils.
So that's something that's kind of like a big theme for this year's environment day.
Yes. And actually in China, the 2024 main event for this day is held in Nanyang, Guangxi, Guangdong, Anonymous region, the event showcases the achievements in ecological and environmental protection in the new era through various formats.
And there are actually a lot of different celebrating or observing or promotional events across the country.
I was wondering is the day very much observed or in a way celebrated in other parts of the world as well?
I was looking it up to get ready for the show.
And I'm so happy that we got to talk about this topic on round table because I think that one of the most important things for us is to keep it in the forefront of our minds about the things that are important for the health of this planet.
Because the way that I think about it is that we are, the world is kind of like our apartment.
The planet is our apartment and we're all kind of sharing the same space.
When you rent an apartment, you have to take care of that apartment.
You're responsible for the upkeep.
You're responsible for the cleaning.
And we as human beings in many parts of the world don't do our job.
So having a day like this is such an important reminder for us that there are things that we can do to make this planet a greener and healthier place.
But to answer your question, I did a little digging and I'm from Canada so I was looking at the Canadian government website.
And this is what I found.
So I was on the government website, the environment and climate change section.
And in Canada, they have Canadian environment week.
And this year it runs from June 2 to June 8.
So it kicked off a couple of days ago and we'll go for a couple of more days.
And this was established back in 1971 and it celebrates Canada's environmental accomplishments and encourages Canadians to contribute to conserving and protecting their environment.
And that page, there's a lot of statistics about where we can improve and things like that.
But there's also advice for what Canadian citizens can do on a grassroots level on how making a change at home perhaps or making a change to your diet can actually have a big impact on the planet.
So yeah, it's done in Canada as well.
Yes. And we are going to talk a little bit about what can we do as individual a bit later for sure.
The thing is, I know the theme of this year sounds a little bit too nerdy and bit boring because it's land restoration, desertification and drought resilience.
It sounds like something that's relatively far away from us, the city de Wellers.
It sounds like something that we do not come too close to.
So I would like to invite you to imagine the last time you see deserts or you see a sandstorm.
Well, I think a couple of years ago, it was still something that happened quite not often or at least to prominent in Beijing.
At that time, we still see the not so clear sky and sandstorm just terbing our lives.
But I have to say, in recent years, it has been much better and our skies started to be super blue and clear.
Air is there all around the year, which is something great.
And that is actually the result of desertification, of planting a lot of different trees, of having something such as the three north shoulder bell development program, which you shall will describe a bit later.
So the idea is that the theme of this year is something that's quite important.
So let's do a quick reality check on what is the scale of our land and how serious the situation of sand desertification is.
In China and also around the world.
According to the United Nations today, up to 40% of the world's land surface has been degraded, including 30% of its crop land and 10% of its pasture land.
In the last 50 years, the area of drylands in drought has increased on average by more than 1% per year, affecting most countries in both Africa and Asia.
If we continue to misuse our land and overly exploit the land resources, we could degrade a surface area as vast as the size of South America by 2050, which is kind of like a near future.
Land degradation, you're right, only in it's something that sounds so classroom, doesn't it?
It sounds like something you learn about when you're a university student.
And it's something that people perhaps can't connect to on a personal or an emotional level when we hear a term like that.
So you're right, we have to dig into some statistics and find out what this actually means for us.
And this is what I learned by doing my research on this topic.
If land degradation remains unchecked, if we keep on going in the direction that we are heading, this can reduce global food productivity by 12%.
And when food productivity gets reduced by that amount, then they say that food prices could soar by up to 30% by the year 2040, which means that things are going to get a lot more unaffordable.
We've already seen food prices in different parts of the world increase recently.
It's getting more and more expensive to be a human being on this planet.
And part of the reason for that is because of land degradation.
Food prices increasing 30% in the next 16 years is not something that I would look forward to.
No. So if it continues to degrade the way it is now up to 250 million people, could be displaced by 2050 as a result of climate change induced desertification.
So it's a situation that's quite serious.
And one thing that makes me feel a little less pressured is that countries across the globe are doing something to try to slow down the process, try to make the desertification process being halted or even being reversed.
Like Yushan has said, we cannot really turn back time, but there are things that we can do.
And we talked already a little bit about why land restoration is important to environmental protection.
One thing for the country China is that we are currently using 9% of arable land and 6% of fresh water resource of the world to raise 20% of the world population, which means we cannot really afford to lose any more of the resource.
So that is why China is making a lot of efforts.
For example, we have the Ning Xia Huoyue Tarnam's region in northwestern China with a total area of only 66,000 square kilometers has over 10,000 square kilometers of desertified land, which is why there are a lot of different initiatives, different methods and different strategies in China focusing on a halting land desertification.
For example, one thing I'd like to share is the grass grid send control technology in Ning Xia.
The grass grits, also known as straw checkboards, you can understand it as using straw or using grass to paint this kind of chessboards on the desert.
And that is a simple but very effective method for controlling sand and preventing desertification.
In sand control measures, the straw left on the surface increases surface roughness and reduces wind speed.
However by wicking the wind's ability to erode and transport sand, which effectively helps stabilize the sand.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because I have been visiting at least twice the desert and it feels intimidating.
It feels overwhelming, standing in the middle of the desert.
And I was not even in the middle of the desert.
I have an expressway right behind me, but you look at the desert and you feel like this is not something that human being can transform into a green land.
It's not something that with my tiny little micro-ability that can improve.
But that is actually happening all around the world.
It's been improved and it's through a lot of different scientific research.
Because it's not really easy.
Well people know this, but I'm stating the obvious.
It's not easy to grow things in the desert.
It's not easy to stabilize what you've been grown in the desert and transforming it.
And there has been a lot of different ways to do that.
For example, there is an agile grass shrub technique.
The robust agile can accelerate soil crust formation, providing a relatively stable ground for the herbaceous plants and the herbaceous plants rely on shallow water resources, which does not exist in the desert.
But it has a strong ability to stabilize sand.
So this all these intricacies coming together give people the need to actually do these research to hold to the desertification situation.
So simply planting grass is not sufficient because once the shallow water resources disappear, the grass will die and desertification will continue.
This is where the shrubs come into play.
Back to my agile grass shrub kind of technique.
I know it's a bit nerdy, but bear with me.
Although shrubs pose a significant threat to deep groundwater, properly planting them can be very effective once an oasis forms the area's water vapor system can be enhanced and all the other types of plants would be able to grow in the land.
I'm only giving one or actually two examples of the kind of research and achievements that scientists have been provided to hold the situation.
Yet there are actually a lot that has been done in this front and I think they deserve a lot of time.
For at least I am using this valuable time to introduce these scientific achievements.
I think you're right and I think the key is sustainability.
Coming up with solutions that will work for a long time in the long term.
You mentioned planting grass that will simply dry up and die after a short period of time.
Well then that's not a solution, is it?
That's like putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound.
It's going to help for about two seconds and then the problem will persist.
Sustainability is the key.
But the great news is that there are examples that restoration works.
One example I found, Nepal for example, has tripled its tiger population by restoring grasslands and forests and now the survival rate of newly planted mangroves in Sri Lanka as another example.
They shot up 3% to 90% since 2005.
That's a massive increase.
In Africa, African farmers are on track to revive 5 million hectares of their agricultural lands as well.
There is proof that taking these measures works, which is good news because when we have that precedent from other countries around the world showing that efforts pay off, then it shows it's not a waste of money, it's not a waste of time, and it's also necessary.
In Canada, to reference Canada, again, they have something called the coming Montreal Global Bio-Diversity Framework.
They kick that off in 2022 and it's a commitment that Canada requested from other countries to ensure that by the year 2030, at least 30% of degraded terrestrial inland water and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration.
So governments not only doing their own thing, but governments helping each other, encouraging each other to make changes is also an important step, I think.
Yeah, and also from my previous interviews, I learned that there has been like you mentioned like scientific researchers and experts on mechanic principles and physics and micro physics and also like bio-diversity-prone experts.
They're all gathering in North China's Intermongolia Autonomous Region and what they do is try to build railway but upon the sand dunes.
And with some mechanical principles that I fail to explain or understand in both English and Chinese, I think the idea is to squeeze up the sand to solidify them instead of just scattering them around, but to put them together as a base for the trials to be lay on so that in a way they're making the sand solidified together.
And in the same theory, they're putting the sand together and kind of switch sand dunes into some sort of a land-like kind of surface that can allow vegetation to grow on, not just a edible vegetables but also plants, you know, something to solidify the sand that helps to kind of lock up the rainfall into the sand so that it becomes eventually, it gets transformed into a piece of forestry that's, you know, sustainable, like Steve said.
So it's all like minor, or maybe not minor, sort of like a major progress that we're making here in China, especially in North and China and part of Central China, in regions as well where that certification is like one major environmental issue that we're trying to battle over the years.
And the example I was raising, like the experts, they took trip there around two decades, or even like earlier ago, and generations of researchers and also local farmers and, you know, tree planners, they've been based there, like long before we noticed or we ever realized that they were there.
So it's like a accumulation of efforts among different generations and the torch is now in our hands.
Now that is definitely true.
And since you mentioned in Nermongolia, there is another example that I think really need to be talked about that is the Mew's dessert.
It's part of the Ordo's Plado in North China spends Shanxi province and the Inemongolia Thomas region.
It is one of China's four major sand lands.
Over 80% of the desert sand land has been controlled with a frustration rate of 30%.
Actually, CGTN has produced a short video about Mao-Ushu.
This is the Chinese name of this area.
It's a really moving video once you click in and start watching.
I assure you you will have a really touching experience with the video knowing how local people, very authentic and very sincere local people has generations of local people.
Like Ushan has said, has been there and controlling the desertification and also improving the environment.
And go look into it, CGTN radial homemade documentary, Go Watch It.
You have a really good watching experience.
I assure you. And because of the very successful example, actually more than 30 experts from eight African countries visited the desert in Ulyan Shanxi province to learn about strategies for desertification control.
The experts visited to understand different strategies, initiatives, blended in Ulyan to combat desertification.
And we know that the city has seen a significant increase in its average forestation rate from 0.9% in 1949 to 36% currently and with 93% of the sand land under control.
That's significant achievement.
But with all that being said, I want to ask you this because we know as individuals, we know the importance of having a better environment.
We know the importance of having forests instead of deserts.
But from an overall point of view, from for example, the entire village, they need to make money, they need to have economic gains and they need to support the family, bring bread on the table.
If we allocate these personnel, these people in the job were onto the mission of environmental protection of planting forests and trees instead of planting crops.
Simple incentives or saying that it is a great cause is definitely not enough.
How can we strike a balance between environmental protection and economic gains?
Well, I think we as individuals can support brands through the purchases that we make that support sustainability source materials, these farmers that are farming in a way that's sustainable and good for the environment, we can make purchases from them.
You talked about, only in a few minutes ago, about your microscopic little ability.
But that's how most people feel.
What can I do? This is such a massive problem that's beyond my control.
Governments can work together and create projects and things like this.
What can I do? This is one of the things that we can do is that we can buy local, we can support local farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We can include more soil-friendly foods in our diet, like lentils and beans and chickpeas.
If you don't know what soil-friendly foods are, the internet is right there.
You can search it. You can do this stuff on your own.
We can use diet calculators and I sent you a link.
I want to talk about that in a few minutes, which is really interesting and makes you feel so guilty about the foods that you eat.
I know. But we can figure out what I'm trying to say is we can figure out through the purchases that we make when we go to the grocery store and the foods that we make, we can support these farmers and this agriculture industry to make it sustainable and make it better overall for the environment.
And as a result, it's going to be better overall for our health as well.
Yes. And also when it comes to different methods, we see that in certain places in China, even though on the sandlands, people figure out how to transform the sandlands into, first of all, relatively speaking arable lands and using that situation or using that kind of lands to grow traditional Chinese medicine harps.
So with that approach, you sort of combine the economic gain with the protection of environment.
I think these kind of incentives, government strategies and methods are actually helping people to achieve the goal of both protecting the environment and also support their families.
And back to what Steve has mentioned.
Yes, I did that calculation and apparently I ate too much of everything, especially red meat, fish and dairy products.
I mean, yes, you're right.
This tells me that not only am I not that responsible to my own personal health, I am also not that responsible to the health of a planet.
So yes, it's making me feel bad and want to change my diet.
Yeah, I was just curious, what kind of diet is essentially good for, let alone good for health, but what kind of diet is really good for the environment?
Yeah, how? So go find this.
If you do an internet search of a planet based diets and then it's an impact action calculator and what you do is you click on how many portions per week you have of certain things.
So it has grains, fruits and vegetables, tubers and roots, nuts and seeds, red meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs, fats and oils, tea and coffee, sugar and alcohol.
And then you input how much you have each week and then it tells you, are you doing a good job?
I'm not taking care of the planet or not.
Do you know what my result was?
It gives you a result, my result was human health not optimal.
Oh, wow. And then it gave me even more information.
It said your diet is leading to biodiversity loss.
Since 1970, we on the planet have lost 69% of all wildlife on the planet and what we eat is the biggest driver behind that.
And talking about what dietary changes we can make to help the environment, well, we know that livestock takes up an entire amount of space to feed them, to take care of them.
They eat a whole lot of food.
They contribute a whole lot to the environmental damage.
So if we can reduce that amount and put our efforts, put our hunger into more sustainable places, then we're helping the planet.
We're helping each other outward.
We're helping ourselves here, which shouldn't be a tough thing to sell to people.
Yes. And my result says, for a sustainable future, we need to be within a plentary boundaries for food systems.
So you should consider making some changes to what you eat.
Yes. So I need to make some changes to what I eat.
But that's apparently not the only thing that we can do.
If you're very much enthusiastic about protecting the environment, go check on the internet.
There are plenty of things that we can contribute.
And our collective efforts can significantly impact the health of our planet.
The sig action. Restore our lens and secure a sustainable future for generations to come.
And just before we finish on this topic, I'm here in Korea at the moment.
And Korea will be hosting World Environment Day in 2025, as a matter of fact.
So next year, it's going to be hosted here in the country.
They're going to be focusing on ending plastic pollution globally.
So that'll be the focus next year.
Looking forward to it. When we get to this topic, 12 months later.
