Kubuqi forum promotes China's desertification control experience worldwide

The Kubuqi International Desert Forum, the world's only international forum dedicated to combating desertification and hosted in a desert region, has become a key platform for sharing China's ecological restoration experience and promoting global cooperation on sustainable land management.

Since its inaugural session in 2007, the biennial forum has documented the transformation of the Kubuqi Desert in Ordos, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, from shifting sand dunes into forests, grasslands, and photovoltaic desert restoration projects.

What started as a modest desert gathering has expanded into a global platform where governments, scientists, and practitioners share practical solutions to land degradation.

Over the past 18 years, the forum has welcomed more than 3,000 government officials, experts, and frontline practitioners from over 100 countries.

Delegates have toured restoration sites to observe techniques such as straw checkerboard sand barriers, minimally invasive airflow tree planting, and integrated photovoltaic desert restoration, which combines solar power generation with vegetation recovery and livestock grazing.

The forum has also gained increasing international recognition. Its outcomes were incorporated into a resolution of the 11th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in 2013, while the Kubuqi model was included in a UN document in 2017 as a representative example of China's desertification control efforts.

In 2023, the China-Arab International Research Center on Drought, Desertification and Land Degradation was launched during the forum, alongside a joint afforestation project with Saudi Arabia.

Many of the technologies developed in Kubuqi have since been applied internationally through Belt and Road cooperation.

Water-saving seedling cultivation, airflow tree planting, straw checkerboard sand stabilization, and integrated photovoltaic desert restoration, have supported ecological restoration projects across Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and African countries.Ordos has also trained desertification control practitioners from dozens of developing countries through international workshops and field programs.

At the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD, held in Riyadh in December 2024, Ordos presented its science-driven desertification management practices to the global audience.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the Kubuqi model demonstrates that ecological restoration can simultaneously improve the environment, support local livelihoods, and generate sustainable economic benefits, providing a practical reference for global efforts to combat desertification.