STORY: Int'l cooperation helps combat desertification in Mongolia
DATELINE: July 31, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:10
LOCATION: Ulan Bator
CATEGORY: ENVIRONMENT
 
SHOTLIST:
1. various of international cooperation to combat desertification in Mongolia
 
STORYLINE:
 
Mongolia has been cooperating with other countries, including China and South Korea, to combat desertification by planting trees and learning from their experience in supporting tree-seedling enterprises, Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Tourism said.
 
"We have cooperated with the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2009 to combat desertification in Mongolia," Dorj Oyuntsetseg, researcher of the Institute of Geography and Geoecology at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua in a recent online interview.
 
The two sides have established around 50-hectare experimental zone to fix dunes in Elsen Tasarkhai, which is a part of the Mongol Els sand dunes. There, researchers from the two countries have fixed the moving sand and grow suitable vegetation and seeds.
 
Mongolia has a total land area of about 1,564,000 square kilometers, with only around 8 percent covered by forests.
 
Around 77 percent of Mongolia's total territory has been affected by desertification and land degradation, official data has showed.
 
The Asian country is expected to plant 42.9 million trees this year within the framework of the national tree-planting campaign "One Billion Trees," according to the environment ministry.
 
Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Ulan Bator.
(XHTV)