From "pigs on the house, sheep jump over the wall, and children sit on the eaves" to "the wind blowing towards Beijing, carrying the fragrance of plants and trees", Fengning, Hebei has spent more than 20 years to manage the ecology and achieve an ecological transformation of "changing the world". A week before this year's "Earth Day", netizens across the country spent 7 days "planting trees on mobile phones" in the ant forest to "explode" a barren mountain, continuing the green miracle of Fengning.

  On April 22, in the early morning breeze of Earth Day, more than 10,000 pine trees fell into the ground and took root in a hundred acres of sand in a barren mountain. This barren mountain in Xiaobazi Township, Fengning, Hebei Province is revived due to a "mobile tree planting" campaign involving netizens across the country. Ant Forest also planted the 600 millionth tree in the nine years since the project was launched, becoming a vivid epitome of the public welfare force's support for the construction of the "Three Norths" protective forest system.

  From mobile phone to barren mountain: green relay at fingertips

  Within seven days from April 16 to 22, Ant Forest issued an initiative to netizens across the country, calling on everyone to plant trees on mobile phones to "explode and reform" a barren mountain in Xiaobazi Township.

  "A week ago, it was a bare sand slope here, and now it is covered with saplings." Wang Xiaoying, Secretary-General of the Ant Forest Ecological Green Development Foundation, pointed to the newly planted pine saplings and sighed, "This is not only a planting tree, but also an action art for netizens to participate in green and low-carbon life." This sand source, which was once famous for "pigs go to the house and sheep jump over the wall", has been reborn under the "cloud watering" of netizens.

  Digging holes, planting, filling soil, and watering them. Even if the hair is blown away by the wind, small beads of sweat are oozing on their foreheads, but every volunteer present is filled with joy. "Every day, I can finally see these saplings take root in reality!" Xu Ziyun, ant forest user who participated in the planting of trees on the spot, said excitedly, "Looking at the saplings after saplings on this sand slope, I feel more realistically what 'green goes into the sand and retreats'!"

  According to Wang Xiaoying, since March this year, large-scale spring seeds of Ant Forest in seven provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities including Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Hebei are being fully launched. Among them, netizens across the country "watered" Hebei and applied for more than 50,000 pine trees and more than 2 million forsythia trees for Hebei within seven days.

  Since the Ant Forest Project was launched in 2016, it has led 700 million people to start a "cloud tree planting" life. Over the past nine years, Ant Group has donated more than 4 billion yuan through the "Ant Forest" project. Public welfare organizations and professional institutions have implemented tree planting and afforestation, supporting desertification control and ecological restoration in 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities including Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Hebei, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and 600 million trees have been planted. It is worth noting that more than 90% of the trees were planted in the core areas of the three landmark battles of the "Three Norths" project, including the "Jizi Bend" battle of the Yellow River, the two major sand annihilation battles of Korqin and Hunshandake, and the core area of ​​the Hexi Corridor-Taklamakan Desert Edge Blocking Battle, becoming an important social welfare supplementary force for the construction of the "Three Norths" project. From the Alxagora forests are neatly arranged in the Gobi Desert to the sea buckthorn fruits in Korchin are hanging on the branches, 700 million people use their fingertips to build a Chinese oasis that transcends numbers and reality.

  Green transformation: from wind and sand sources to ecological barriers

  "Beijing's ten grains of sand are occupied by Fengning." "The yellow sand buried the walls, the quicksand collapsed the houses, and farming without harvesting grain." Gao Guojiang, the former secretary of Fuerying Village, Xiaobazi Township, used local proverbs from the older generation to vividly describe the situation of the strong wind and heavy sand in the past in Xiaobazi Township.

  "Xiaoba Township used to have 6 natural villages, and 5 and a half natural villages were surrounded by sand. Looking around, the mountains and fields were full of deserted dunes. The villagers went out to farm and caught the heavy dust. When they went home to wash their faces at night, a thin layer of gravel would sink to the bottom of the basin. It was even harder for the children to go to school, and they would face the suspension of classes when the weather was severe." Gao Guojiang recalled.

  Fengning is located in the transition zone between the North China Plain and the Mongolian Plateau, connected to the Hunshandake Sand in the north and Beijing in the south. The Yanshan Mountains form a channel in Fengning, which is a must-pass place for the wind and sand in the north to move south in spring. Twenty years ago, in Fengning, every winter and spring, wind and sand would go south along the ditches, which not only seriously affected the production and life of local people, but also threatened the ecological environment of Beijing, Tianjin and other places. Today, this sand source, which was once famous for "yellow sand burying the walls and quicksand pressing the houses", has gone through more than 20 years of hard work, and the local forest coverage rate has jumped from 26.6% to 58.53%, and the sandstorms caused by local sand sources are almost extinct. "It's different now. The wind blowing towards Beijing now has the fragrance of plants and trees." Gao Guojiang sighed as he stroked the newly planted saplings.

  Hebei is the ecological environment support area of ​​Beijing and Tianjin, and is also a key area for the "Three Norths" project. It shoulders the important mission of building a solid green ecological barrier in the capital. The transformation of Xiaobazi Township reflects the magnificent journey of sand prevention and control. Wang Xiaoying said: "Fengning has a history of continuous sand control for more than 20 years. It not only refreshes the local natural ecological landscape, but also helps the ecological transformation of the entire North China region. Every sapling rooted in the desert and every inch of rejuvenating land embodies the hard work and sweat of countless sand control people. We hope that through the joint participation of Ant Forest and the majority of netizens, this tenacity of long-lasting efforts will be passed on, so that more people can see the power of ecological governance."

  According to statistics, since the Ant Forest first landed in Hebei in 2020, more than 22 million people across the country have planted trees on their mobile phones in Hebei; accordingly, Ant Group has donated more than 350 million yuan to Hebei in the past five years, planting more than 23 million tree species such as pine pine, pine pine, and arboretum, with a planting area of ​​200,000 mu. Among them, the Ant Forest Project has donated more than 45 million yuan in total to Fengning Ecological Construction, planted more than 1.6 million pine trees with a planting area of ​​more than 15,000 mu.

  Green and rich people have risen together: "Gold and silver mountains" grow in the sand

  While building a solid ecological barrier, the dividends of green development continue to be released.

  Gao Guojiang pointed to the hillside full of pine saplings and sighed: "The bare hilltops used to be, nothing could grow. Now that the mountain is full of trees, the vegetation has begun to recover, it is a real 'green bank'. Not only does planting trees and forest protection require manpower and material resources, it will bring certain income to our local villagers, and the improved land environment also creates better conditions for agricultural production. This real benefit is brought by planting trees and protecting green."

  With the gradual implementation of Ant Forest in six cities, including Chengde, Zhangjiakou, Baoding, Handan, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai in Hebei Province, it has driven about 146,000 local labor employment such as planting and maintenance, and the villagers who participated increased their labor income by more than 20 million yuan from the donations of Ant Group.

  Not only Hebei, but also the win-win answers to help ecology become rich by charity forces like this have blossomed everywhere in the "Three Norths". In the hinterland of the Alxa desert, the Cistanche deserticola cultivated by Yang Shilong and his uncle Yang Fuyuan under the Halaxy Forest brings family income of 50,000 yuan or 60,000 yuan every year; on the same land, Lei Xinguang, who has transformed into an ecological entrepreneurship, led the villagers to set up a cooperative to plant flower sticks, and the annual income from seed harvest alone reached 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, which also attracted many villagers who left their hometown due to ecological deterioration to return to their hometown. According to the project plan, after completing the three-year maintenance period, Ant Forest will donate the ecological restoration results to the local governments. By establishing a long-term mechanism of "desert control + wealth", a green channel for transforming ecological resources into economic wealth will be opened on the battlefield of the "Three Norths" project.

  "While giving full play to the ecological value, Ant Forest has become a green infrastructure for local fellow villagers to increase their labor income in some places," said Wang Xiaoying. According to statistics, the Ant Forest project has been implemented in various places and has created more than 4.2 million labor opportunities. Of the more than 4 billion funds donated to various places through "Ant Forest", more than 600 million yuan has become labor subsidies for fellow villagers participating in planting and maintenance. Local governments are also guiding local people to adapt to local conditions and developing ecological value products based on different tree species of Ant Forest.

  Through the innovative model of "Internet + Public Welfare", Ant Forest not only inspires the public's low-carbon behavior, but also supports local ecological construction through corporate donations to support local ecological construction, allowing more people to participate in ecological protection, adding a support from social welfare to national ecological construction projects such as the "Three Norths" project. In the future, this green relay from "mobile phone to the place" will continue. The "green energy" at the fingertips of hundreds of millions of netizens is writing the answer to the harmonious coexistence between man and nature. (Text/Wang Yan)

[Editor in charge: Chen Tingyu]