International training courses on desertification and its control in developing countries opened in Lanzhou on Sep. 25, 2013. More than 10 students from the developing countries and 3 students from Union Nation University, was trained in training courses. 

Training courses will be lasted for a week, and students will realize the desert and the desertification in China, and they will learn the courses on desertification control technology of China, the construction and management of oases in arid regions, the technology of ecological recovering in arid regions, sand prevention technology of railways and highways, desert governance and the exploitation of deserticulture during the training. And they will investigate in Ningxia Shapotou. Otherwise, they held a seminar on desertification, communicated the current situations and the measures on the desertification in developing countries. 

Wang Tao, who is Chairman of IDRA and the training teacher, introduced that the global desertified land spread at a speed of 50,000 to 70,000 sq. km per annum, it threatened near one third land of the world and more than a billion people, and the desertification made many countries suffered famine in successive years. If the desertification isn’t controlled effectively, the global cultivated lands will decrease to 2/3 of current cultivated lands at the end of the 21th century. 

As one of the most serious desertification countries in the world, the desertification area of China takes up 27.4% of the national territory area. Wang introduced, desertification control is relate to the development of country and the national existence. After more than ten years, the desertified land was controlled effectively in north of China through the program of “Return Farmland to Forestland or Grass”, “Green Great Wall” and Ecological Construction, and the situation of some areas has made remarkable progress. 

Wang said we coordinate the relation of the natural resources, the environment and the human activity so that we can control the desertification; and we should construct the management mode for exploiting the desert resources, controlling desertification and protecting the sustainable development. 

The Meeting Site