Part 1. “The Great Green Wall”: a tragic project of the Chinese government

Now China continues global climate projects on its territory. Over the past few decades, the country's ecosystems have been so destroyed that the habitat has become practically impossible for living. Water horizons are receding, forests are cut down, ecosystems formed over thousands of years of evolutionary history have been destroyed. Meanwhile, the country's population is colossal, and the state's course is focused solely on production for export worldwide.

China can be compared to one huge enterprise that works to the limit to supply the world with goods. And around this enterprise, waters are depleted and polluted, forests are cut down, animals are dying out.

I recently wrote a big piece about how China is restoring forests on its territory on a large scale. This project is called the “Great Green Wall,” and interestingly — in China itself, it is more often called the “Three-North Shelterbelt.” Its meaning is to hold back the “moving desert” of the Gobi in the northern regions of China! The desert is expanding, there are constant dust storms, and there is a rapid degradation of land in border areas. Therefore, the Chinese government made an attempt to fence off the desert with an artificial forest strip! The project began in 1978 and is planned to be completed by 2050, but even now they have successfully completed the construction of a forest strip over 3,000 km long.

This project is similar to the “Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature,” which was once launched by Joseph Stalin in the USSR. Back then, after the Patriotic War, many forests in the central part of the country were destroyed! Therefore, it was necessary to create forest protection belts that would stop the degradation of lands and increase the efficiency of agriculture.

In general, both projects are aimed at locally improving the microclimate in specific regions, in an attempt to stabilize already lost ecosystems. But on a global scale, such projects can only intensify the destruction of the planet's biological rhythms, increasing future disasters. And if our Soviet ancestors, who did not know many things at that time, can be forgiven, then China’s global climate projects cause extreme bewilderment!

Let me try to explain using the example of the “Great Green Wall.”

Our Russian physicists, in their scientific works, discovered the biotic regulation of the climate by natural ecosystems. Imagine rivers so full-flowing over our heads that many of them exceed in volume the water of the familiar rivers on land! Only thanks to these “air rivers” are terrestrial ecosystems able to support life, rains fall, our rivers fill with water. If the “air currents” are disrupted, desertification will begin, life will gradually become impossible inside the continents, everything will die.

And it is precisely undisturbed forests that ensure the flow of moisture from the oceans to the land. Forests create vertical air currents that “suck in” moisture from the oceans, maintain rainfall and year-round soil moisture. At the same time, it is important that such forests be “aboriginal,” that is, completely natural, formed by thousands of years of history! No other forests are capable of maintaining the biotic pump.

And any artificial plantations, especially alien species, especially if they are monocultures, completely contradict modern scientific data on the importance of maintaining the biotic pump. Such artificial forest strips do not create complex ecosystems necessary to maintain the “moisture pump,” and they are also unstable to droughts, diseases, and even if restored within the boundaries of “aboriginal forests,” they can never fully perform their functions.

This is especially important when people plant new forests in “beds.” I always say, and I have repeatedly written in my books about this, that if nature needed “beds” — it would certainly do so! But in the wild, the complexity of ecosystems is important; the more complex they are, the higher the biodiversity and the stronger the immune system. But for some reason, people confidently “restore” forests in “beds,” believing that this will be better for nature.

Let’s return to the “Great Green Wall,” which is now being built around the Gobi Desert. This forest strip is an attempt by the Chinese government to at least somewhat postpone the degradation of ecosystems, to try to contain the very ecological disasters that are already happening due to the destruction of “aboriginal forests” in the country. Climate rhythms are disrupted, “air rivers” do not carry the required volumes of water, underground sources are also receding.

The “Green Wall” itself is mostly located far from the ocean coastline, which reduces its influence on the moisture-laden air flows coming from the sea. These areas already have a low level of precipitation, and the addition of forest strips definitely will not improve the inflow of moisture.

At the same time, according to the scientific data of Russian scientists on the biotic regulation of the climate, in order for the transfer of moisture to occur from the sea to areas of land remote from the coast, a continuous forest cover is needed, which in the end must go to the coastline. The “Chinese Wall” is an isolated project on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert and is not included in natural “aboriginal forests,” which, accordingly, indicates the impossibility of influencing the air rivers.

But the protective “Green Wall” already leads to the fact that an enormous amount of water is required to maintain it. Due to a lack of moisture, many trees die, which leads to an aggravation of desertification! The thing is that such a global project literally squeezes out the last drops of water from underground sources, and when there is none left — the trees simply die, and along with them die the ecosystems that the Chinese authorities tried to protect by creating the “Great Green Wall.”

It’s simple: if the trees of the “Green Wall” got moisture from somewhere, it means that this moisture did not remain for those already damaged ecosystems nearby. And since artificial forests are not able to draw moisture deep into the continent thanks to the biotic pump, it means the water was taken from the still living, genuine ecosystems!

Displacing local ecosystems, artificial forests disrupt all natural mechanisms of soil restoration and the water cycle.

Instead of creating a “Great Green Wall,” China should have started restoring natural forest ecosystems, and develop technologies close to how nature itself does it! Excluding the planting of monocultures and “beds” in places of once complex biological systems.

And frankly, I don’t understand how such global projects can be implemented in the modern world, where there are not only the necessary scientific works but also technical capabilities for the real restoration of lost ecosystems.

The protective forest strips along the Gobi Desert will inevitably die, and over the years this will accelerate the degradation of natural ecosystems. And while China is actively implementing a deliberately unprofitable project, our Russian government is meeting their needs for wood. It is our Russian Taiga that is being cut down in colossal volumes for export to the Middle Kingdom.

I would not be lying if I said that first they destroyed their own ancient forests, and now they are financing the destruction of our ancient forests according to the same principle.

Moreover, our Ministry of Natural Resources, for the sake of developing Chinese investments, openly proposes to cut down NATURAL PROTECTIVE FORESTS, which are the last refuges of wildlife on Earth! Everything else has long been developed and destroyed. In fact, it is precisely the “aboriginal” ancient forests today that, in their fragmented state, regulate the “air rivers,” providing all life on the continents with the necessary moisture.

Think about it!

China has destroyed its ecosystems and has been building protective artificial walls for decades, fully aware that this is a deliberately unprofitable project! Moreover, this project is dangerous for those natural ecosystems that it is supposed to protect.

Meanwhile, Russia, instead of preserving and protecting natural forests, is actively pushing through bills that legalize their “development,” and now the authorities demand cutting down NATURAL PROTECTIVE FORESTS in mountainous refuges of wildlife.

Seeing before us the tragic experience of China, we supply them with timber from our Russian Taiga and invite them to build tourism clusters in places of once ancient forests.

How soon will our state begin to build the “Great Baikal Wall” around Lake Baikal to stop its demise? I remind you that right now the authorities are trying to pass a law on clear-cutting protective-category forests around Baikal.

The system is chasing immediate profit, completely ignoring the future of our children. Even seeing the real tragedy of our Chinese neighbors.

• Read the first part of the article “China is building the Great Green Wall while funding deforestation in Russia”

© PAVEL PASHKOV