YICHUAN, September 17, Chinadaily -- Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwestern China, is paying greater attention to environmental protection in response to the central government's call to maintain sustainable development.
Officials said the city had made significant efforts to curb desertification, increase reforestation and improve wetland protection over the past few years.

The 81,800-hectare Baijitan National Nature Reserve in Lingwu county in Yinchuan is on the edge of the Maowusu Desert, which covers an area of more than 40,000 square kilometers. The gradually expanding desert has been a critical problem constraining regional development since the 1950s.

BEIJING, September 11, Chinadaily -- Three young Chinese were honored Tuesday as the winners of an environmental project contest for their ideas and efforts in environmental and ecological protection.

LANZHOU, September 10, Chinadaily -- He Min has patrolled the giant panda habitat of Baishuijiang National Reserve in Gansu province for 16 years, but he has only had one encounter with a wild animal.

Covering nearly 184,000 hectares of mountain forest, Baishuijiang, which is China's largest giant panda habitat, is home to more than 110 wild giant pandas, 10 percent of the country's total.

SHANXI, September 7, Xinhua -- The 2018 Youyu Forest Concert series opened at Nanshan Forest Park in Youyu county, Shanxi province, on Sept 5, with more than 3,000 people in attendance. A second and third concert was held the following day.

More than 80 folk music performers took to the stage with various traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu (a two-stringed bowed musical instrument), pipa (a plucked string instrument with a fretted fingerboard) and sheng (a reed pipe wind instrument), demonstrating the unique culture and heritage of Shanxi province.

This year saw the concerts showcase music related to the environment, paying tribute to the efforts of local people in turning the barren county into a flourishing oasis.

SHANXI, August 30, China.org.cn -- “It's impossible to support my family on the meager income I get from farming. The land is barren, yielding no more than a few hundred kilos,” said Ju Jianhua, who lives in Shixia Town and is a member of his village's afforestation cooperative. “During slack farming seasons the cooperative organizes us to plant trees. We're all willing, because that way we can earn us as much as 120 yuan a day – double what I get from farming.”

Building Zuoquan's ecology, therefore, is also a way of helping people out of poverty, hence the so-called “a battlefield for two campaigns.” JuWeirong, director of the Forestry Bureau of Zuoquan County explained that the cooperatives have built a platform for farmers' participation. “We have created a mechanism encompassing afforestation projects, cooperatives, and impoverished families – a model that gives consideration to both poverty reduction and ecological construction,” Ju said.

A total of 1,725 people from 626 poverty-stricken households in Zuoquan have joined afforestation cooperatives. Their living standards are improving in tandem with the county's environment.