Afforestation project area in Qingshan district, Baotou, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo/WeChat account of Baotou Daily]

Baotou has been speeding up the compiling of the "Baotou City Desertification Control Plan", making full efforts to promote the work of desertification prevention and control and making new contributions to build an ecological demonstration city in North China.

The city will strengthen the comprehensive prevention and control of desertification, with desertified land as the central position, and coordinate the systematic management of the city's mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass, and sand.

The desertified land is set to be divided into four areas: the desertification prevention and control area, the desertification prevention and control achievement consolidation area, the desertification prevention and control quality and efficiency improvement area, and the ecological protection and restoration area along the Yellow River.

To combat desertification, it's crucial to implement thorough actions like rehabilitating damaged forests and grasslands. This promises to enhance the overall extent of forest and grassland coverage.

The achievement consolidation area is expected to mainly consolidate the achievements of national key ecological projects such as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, the control of the Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source, and the return of farmland to forest, further improving the quality of forest ecosystem and carbon sink capacity.

The ecological protection and restoration area along the Yellow River is set to increase the construction of farmland shelterbelts along the north bank of the Yellow River and promote the greening and beautification of cities and towns.

This year, Baotou plans to implement afforestation tasks of 300,000 mu (20,000 hectares) and grassland protection and restoration tasks of 1 million mu, and the work has been vigorously promoted.