World

Since 1978, China has planted more than 66 billion trees in an effort to slow the expansion of two major deserts, making it the country with the largest tree-planting effort in history. China has carried out the world’s largest afforestation program, planting tens of billions of trees to combat desertification and restore damaged ecosystems. After decades of deforestation, overgrazing, and expanding deserts, China launched the Three North Shelterbelt Program in 1978 to slow the growth of the Gobi Desert and protect farmland and cities from dust storms. The effort later expanded to areas surrounding the Taklamakan Desert, where trees were planted along highways, rivers, and desert borders to stabilize shifting sands. These programs helped increase China’s forest coverage from around 12% in the early 1980s to more than 24% today, with NASA satellite data showing China contributed about 25% of the world’s increase in leaf area between 2000 and 2017.