Despite remarkable local achievements, overall desertification in China remains uncurbed. In 2006, there were seventeen dust storms, the worst of which dumped 330,000 tonnes of dust on Beijing in one night.

After travelling 500 kilometres, the train slides into Jining South station. This marks our entrance into the expanse of China’s Inner Mongolia Province, once famous for its lush steppes and the shepherds who inhabit them. Today, though, it is becoming famous for its new deserts.

In 2001, former president Jiang Zemin passed the Law on Desert Prevention and Transformation, and, in 2002, the new Grassland Law. Both forbid grazing during critical periods like spring. Parcels of land are fenced off and protected for natural restoration, but despite the law, as our car goes up a hill, a herd of sheep appears out of nowhere, munching on the steppe’s exhausted turf. Two shepherds greet us with a mocking gaze: “We let our herds onto the pastures at night, when the police knock off,” one explains from under an oversized fur hat.

Our conversation is suddenly cut short as they push their flock into the valley, having spotted a police car coming down the road. “The grass police!” one exclaims. It is only as we head back to our taxi that we notice the mass of sheep excrement underfoot.

The next morning, we drive on the new highway through kilometres of sandy land before reaching the prairie around Xilinhot City. Mongolian herders on motorcycles direct their horses through denuded dales, but the majority of the people we cross paths with are workers, busy planting yellow willows in an effort to keep the dunes in place.

“Most of these tree planters are herdspeople,” explains the foreman. “They now keep their animals in pens. The government compensates them for their losses and provides them with forage. The herders end up making more money!”

Farther off, there’s a mechanic’s shop, where shepherds wait for their motorcycles to be fixed. “The restrictions aren’t good for the shepherds,”says the only one among them who speaks Chinese. “The sheep that these Mongolian herders keep in pens lack food. They’re too thin. That’s why many hide from the police to let their animals graze at night.”

From a mere 2 million in 1977, the number of animals grazing the Xilingol steppe had reached 18 million by the year 2000, expanding the Hunshandake desert and desertifying the steppe itself. Local governments encouraged breeders to raise their livestock numbers in order to pump up this desolate province’s gross domestic product. In China, officials are promoted or sanctioned based on their success in increasing their regional gdp.

On this morning the sky is blue. Until 11 a.m., that is, when a cloud of dust from the steppes surrounding Xilinhot City moves in, visible in the distance from every alleyway. The sand beats against the car windows as noisily as a hailstorm. “We have to replace our windshields once a year,” complains our driver. Despite the wind and the sand in their eyes, teams of tree planters continue their arduous task.

At 1,335 kilometres from Beijing, the train reaches Yinchuan station in the Muslim-dominated Ningxia Province. This is where the great Mongolian steppes give way to the ancient deserts of western China.