中國打造“綠色長城”：沙漠裏種樹的驚人壯舉

A desert doesn't sound like the most promising place to plant a tree. Yet, since 1978, China has planted at least 66 billion of them across its arid northern territories, hoping to transform its sandy steppes and yellow dunes into a Great Green Wall.
沙漠聽上去不像是最理想的種樹之地。但是自1978年以來，中國已在乾旱的北方地區栽種了至少660億棵樹，希望能將沙質草原和黃色沙丘改造成綠色長城。

Ian Teh documented this epic undertaking while traveling through northern China last year. His expansive photographs show workers tending saplings, filling irrigation tanks, and blasting young trees with water. “Planting trees sounds great on paper, but you can feel skeptical,” Teh says. “But in person, it was impressive.”
鄭永仁去年穿越中國北方，記錄下了這一驚人的壯舉。他拍攝了大量的工人管理樹苗、給灌溉水車注水和給小樹澆水的照片。他說：“從理論上說，種樹是好事，但是你可能產生懷疑。不過親眼目睹後令人難忘。”

The tree-planting strategy is a massive attempt to help fight desertification. Roughly a million square miles of China—a quarter of the country—is covered in sand. Drought, deForestation, overgrazing and other problems threaten an additional 115,000 square miles, fueling brutal sandstorms that regularly blast cities like Beijing and Dunhuang. Many scientists are skeptical planting trees will make a difference in the long run. But China’s State Forestry Administration claims the measure has reduced sandstorms by 20 percent and desertification by nearly 5,000 miles in recent years.
這個植樹造林的戰略是幫助戰勝荒漠化的宏大嘗試。中國大約有100萬平方英里（約合260萬平方千米）的土地爲黃沙覆蓋，佔國土面積的四分之一。乾旱、森林採伐、過度放牧等等問題威脅着另外11.5萬平方英里的土地，引發的嚴重沙塵暴經常肆虐北京和敦煌等城市。很多科學家懷疑種樹從長遠來看是否能有很大作用。不過中國國家林業局表示，這一舉措近年來使沙塵暴減少了20%，荒漠化土地減少了近5000平方英里。

Teh lives in Malaysia but works throughout Asia, documenting humans’ impact on the landscape. Over six days in May 2016, he photographed tree-planting schemes in the Gobi Desert in northern China. They seemed successful in places like Duolun County, some 220 miles north of Beijing, where the government has planted 2.6 million trees over the past 17 years. The place felt pastoral, almost lush. Teh had to stop his car on the side of the highway and hike several minutes over dunes just to see where the wind-blown grass ended and the sand began. “To be honest, it was hard to imagine it was ever a desert at all,” he says.
鄭永仁住在馬來西亞，但是工作在亞洲各地奔波，記錄人類對地表的影響。在2016年5月份的6天中，他拍攝了中國北部戈壁沙漠的植樹造林計劃。在北京以北約220英里處的多倫縣等地，植樹造林計劃似乎取得了成功，過去17年政府在那裏植樹260萬棵。那個地方一派鄉野風光，草木茂盛，他不得不在公路邊上停下車，徒步走幾分鐘，翻過沙丘，看看在風中搖曳的草的盡頭和沙漠開始的地方。他說：“老實講，難以想象這裏在過去是沙漠。”

For contrast, he also flew some 800 miles southwest to the Tengger Desert, one of the places in China most affected by desertification. Outside the city of Wuwei, farmers struggled to work the dry soil. "It’s incredible to see them tilling land and everything around is dusty," he says.
爲了對比，他還乘飛機向西南方向飛行約800英里到騰格裏沙漠，那是中國荒漠化最嚴重的地區之一。在武威市郊區，農民在乾旱的土地上艱難地耕作。他說：“看到他們在那裏種田，而周圍卻是黃沙漫漫，令人難以置信。”