Cows graze contentedly in Darhan Muminggan Joint Banner in Baotou. [Photo/Baotou Daily]

Darhan Muminggan Joint Banner in Baotou city, in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, has beefed up its ecological and environmental protection in an all-round, whole-region and whole-process way since 2012 – and has always taken desertification prevention as its main task. The banner has successively implemented key ecological projects, such as returning farmland to forest and grassland, as well as controlling the source of sandstorms in Beijing and Tianjin cities, some 700 kilometers or so to the east.

In 2022, the banner's carbon emissions digital management platform was launched – which was also the first county-level carbon emissions management platform in Inner Mongolia . The readings showed the amount of good ambient air quality in the whole banner reached 338 days, ranking it first in the city; 11 water conservation projects were carried out, 74 kilometers of river channels were repaired and seven reservoirs were repaired.

This year, the banner will carry out restoration of 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares) of degraded grassland, afforestation of 5,500 mu of shrub forests and the transformation of 10,000 mu of low-quality and low-efficiency forests.

It will strive to implement a comprehensive ecological treatment project at the north foot of Yinshan Mountain in 2023. The banner will speed up its carbon sink area construction and forest and grass carbon sink pilot projects – having invested 1.1 million yuan ($154,000) in nine villages and one township to continuously promote rural greening.

Moving forwards, the banner will aim to continue to create a place of harmonious coexistence between man and nature on the grasslands.