(From second left) Chen Yanxian, Liu Haiying and Yu Shitao receive the highest environmental honor from the United Nations on behalf of the Communist Party of China Saihanba Afforestation Community in Nairobi, Kenya, on Dec 5, 2017. (PAN ZHONGMING / CHINA DAILY)
Riding his vehicle amid the lush, sprawling greenery in Saihanba, North China, in 2005, Yu Shitao felt he was part of a painting of colorful autumn leaves unfolding in front of him.
Yu, then a college graduate, was making his way to his first and only working place to fulfill his dream of planting trees in the deserts. He knew little of the woods he passed, including those named after one of his heroic predecessors, and even less of the glory of Saihanba that would come decades later.
By 2017, the Saihanba afforestation community took home the United Nations Champions of the Earth Award for its outstanding contribution to the restoration of degraded landscapes. With a total forest landscape of 1.15 million mu (about 76,700 hectares), Saihanba has become a national forest park and nature reserve as well as an important ecological shield for Beijing and adjacent regions.
Back in 2005, having graduated from Hebei Agricultural University’s College of Forestry, Yu was determined to work on the front lines of China’s afforestation effort. Once settled at Saihanba Mechanized Forest Farm, he saw his initial burst of exhilaration withering faster than some young trees he planted.
By November, Saihanba was battered by monstrous elements, with a powerful northwest wind bringing in bone-chilling snow.
Even in the severest of weather, Yu often found himself venturing out with colleagues, scaling the surrounding mountains to trim the trees. He often found himself slipping and sliding on the cold ground whenever he had to haul back buckets of icy water in the winter.
“Every day was a struggle for me and I felt I just couldn’t wait to flee this place,” Yu said.
But today, Yu looks back on these “miserable” conditions years ago with a laugh.
“Think of how extremely difficult the conditions that previous generations faced were, those who were devoted and persistent in pursuing that work for decades without complaining. How does this bit of suffering compare to that of their tough lives?” he asked, reflecting. “It seems a bit shameful if I weaken when I encounter just a little difficulty.”
Stories about the earlier generations of foresters who stuck to the mountains and climbed up the ice and snow would often bring Yu close to tears every time he heard them from his colleagues.
What shocked Yu the most was that more than half of the first group of foresters at Saihanba had already died, partly as a result of the harsh natural environment and partly because of the hard labor required to grow the forest. Their average life span was only 55 years.
Among the heroic names was Wang Shanghai, captain of the first generation of foresters on the farm. Wang died there in 1989 after devoting his life to its cultivation since 1962. A specific local area was named Shanghai Forest to commemorate his work.
“I have to do my part for the forest farm,” a determined Yu concluded, realizing that the beautiful forestry he appreciated came from to the sacrifices of countless foresters.
Saihanba — which means “beautiful highlands” in combined Chinese and Mongolian — was once a royal hunting ground of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Until the late 1950s, it had degraded into a barren wilderness.
Efforts to rehabilitate the region started in 1962 when the forestry ministry of the time decided to build an artificial forest farm to block the southward movement of sand that kept threatening Beijing and other northern cities.
To carry out the task, a group of 369 foresters from 18 provinces nationwide, mostly in their 20s, was established, making up the first generation of Saihanba foresters.
Aerial photo taken on Aug 23 shows the scenery of Saihanba forest farm in North China’s Hebei province. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
A total of 127 graduates — mostly forestry majors — from two technical schools and a college arrived to join the 242 workers who were already on-site.
However, planting trees and ensuring their survival was never an easy job in Saihanba, where temperatures could drop to -43 C and the average frost-free season only lasts 64 days.
At that time, the Saihanba pioneers were equipped with only the simplest tools amid extreme cold and drought.
For those who were there in 1962 and ‘63, the first two years of Saihanba’s existence, clinging to hope meant not only facing up to the harsher side of nature, but also to repeated failures.
More than 2,000 mu of trees were planted, but less than 8 percent survived each year due to the severe climate. Although the low survival rate of tree seedlings threatened the existence of the forest, things began to improve in the spring of 1964.
“The tree seedlings used were imported from other parts of China so they didn’t fit the local environmental conditions,” said pioneer captain Wang, then 42.
The foresters decided to make one last attempt, with seedlings that were all grown locally and known to have strong stems and roots. When July arrived, the workers were overjoyed to discover a soft carpet of green shoots. That year, the survival rate topped 90 percent.
But that same year, many of the forest workers developed severe rheumatism.
When 19-year-old Chen Yanxian, who had just graduated from a high school in Chengde in 1964, and five of her classmates were told the country was going to cultivate a lush forest, they did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon.
Chen, who was one among many students who went to Saihanba back then, clearly remembers their hardships. The wind blew sand everywhere. Thatched huts they lived in leaked rain from the roofs, and at night — through cracks on walls and holes on the door — they could glimpse the glaring green eyes of wolves. Their hands, feet and faces were all frostbitten.
“But people were full of energy,” she said.
In the years after the initial breakthrough of 1964, progress was halted several times.
The workers were devastated when glazed frost hit in October 1977, destroying 38,000 hectares of forest in a single night.
That disaster was followed by a long drought in the 1980s and numerous plagues of insects throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s. In the spring of 2013, Saihanba suffered a serious rat infestation. Amid such setbacks, foresters continued to plant trees.
In 1984, 19-year-old Liu Haiying graduated from a vocational forestry school in Hebei, and came to Saihanba to become a grassroots technician on the farm.
At that time, Saihanba had just turned a new page in history. In the twenty years between 1962 and 1982, the mechanical forest farm had fulfilled its tasks in advance, and a forest area had begun to take shape.
Sandstorms came under control and the living conditions and transport in surrounding areas improved, but things remained harsh for Liu and the second generation of foresters, who often suffered from fatigue, hunger and loneliness.
They began to focus on exploring scientific and technological breakthroughs to protect the seedlings from strong wind and other disasters.
By conducting research and investigation, Liu led his team to solve the problem of planting Scotch pines using a method of covering seedlings with soil resistant to wind.
The third generation of Saihanba foresters — typified by Yu, now 41 — specializes in advanced technologies such as pest control and fostering new saplings.
Yu once asked his wife, Fu Lihua, “Why do you want to stay on the farm with me?” She answered, half-jokingly: “It’s not because of you. It’s because of the forest, for Saihanba.”
Fu, who has a postgraduate degree in forestry and who started work at the farm in 2011, once reported to President Xi Jinping: “In the present stage, our research (on the farm) focuses on how to improve the quality of the forests and to boost their ecological benefits.”
In recent years, with almost no flat land left, people at Saihanba have started to plant trees on rocky mountain slopes, where the topsoil can be very thin.
Yu said that he was merely carrying forward the baton of his predecessors — the first two generations of foresters in Saihanba — in continuing their hard work.
He explained that people “who work in the forestry industry are very low-profile types, partly because the fruits of their labor can often only be seen after several decades”.
Today, the survival rate of trees in Saihanba has reached 98.9 percent and the forests have endured some of the worst droughts, frosts and pests, said Chen Zhiqing, head of the farm.
Thanks to the consistent efforts by three generations of Saihanba foresters over the past 59 years, the deteriorating trend of local ecology has been reversed, Chen said.
According to the Chinese Academy of Forestry, the forest farm can absorb 860,300 metric tons of carbon dioxide and release 598,400 tons of oxygen. The ecological services it provides each year are estimated to reach nearly 16 billion yuan (about $2.47 billion).
At present, Saihanba’s forest stock volume reaches nearly 10.37 million cubic meters, and it delivers 137 million cu m of clean water to Beijing and Tianjin each year.
Saihanba has once again come into the spotlight as President Xi hailed it as an example of the global history of ecological progress during his recent inspection tour to the farm in late August.
During his visit, Xi hailed the Saihanba Spirit — staying true to aspirations, being hardworking and enterprising, and pursuing green development. Describing it as an integral part of the spiritual pedigree of the Communist Party of China, he said the Party and the people of the entire country must carry forward this spirit to develop a green economy and ecological civilization.
Hailing the farm’s development, Xi said the construction history of Saihanba is an epic history of an arduous struggle.
With a more stable, sound and quality forest ecosystem, Saihanba’s function of providing ecological services will be further strengthened, Chen said, vowing to build it into a demonstration zone of ecological civilization.
Xinhua, Zhao Xu and Lei Lei in Beijing contributed to this story.
