Aiming high, Alshaa League embarks on green development trek

Alshaa League – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – has taken the path towards green development, aiming high to develop a healthy and stable ecosystem, according to local media reports.

The league – relying on its desert's rich and sandy plant resources – is striving to cultivate the high-quality development of its sands industry in line with local conditions, so as to strike an optimal outcome in eco-friendly governance, conservation and economic expansion.

In recent years, Alshaa has successively implemented key conservation programs, such as natural forest protection projects and returning farmland to forests.

By end-2021, the league had completed a total of 89.4 million mu (5.96 hectares) of desertification control programs and the total area of grassland and forest resources there had reached 280.01 million mu and 35.8 million mu, respectively.

This year, the league plans to extend forest and grass ecological protection covering 11 million mu.

Relying on its abundant raw materials resources of sand grass – such as cistanche and cynomorium songaricum – 44 enterprises have moved there to invest in the mineral sands industry. This has seen the formation of a supply chain that integrates planting, processing, production and sales.

As a direct result, the sands industry has boomed, to provide a new route for farmers and herdsmen to increase their incomes.

Through a "company + base + scientific research + cooperative + farmers and herdsmen" model, there are now more than 30,000 farmers and herdsmen directly and indirectly engaged in the sands industry. They earn an average annual per capita income of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan ($4,370-$7,284) and some herdsmen even earn 100,000 yuan per year.

Alshaa League has a vast land area, abundant wind and light resources and an estimated total of 1 billion kilowatts of available new energy resources. As such, it has unique advantages in developing its new energy industry.

As of 2021, it had connected 43 new energy projects to the grid, with an installed capacity of 1.87 million kilowatts. In 2022, it plans to implement 24 new energy projects with an installed capacity of 3.76 million kW.