China has planted an estimated 66 billion trees since 1978 as part of the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, also known as the Great Green Wall, to slow the advance of the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. A 2026 study in Geophysical Research Letters found that planted sections of this forest are increasing their leaf cover faster than China's natural woodlands, with a 66% faster increase in leaf area index. However, most of that gap is due to the younger age of planted trees. When controlling for age, the advantage shrinks to 4.6%. The study notes that the growth rate gap peaks when planted trees are 30 to 40 years old and then declines. The scale of the program is massive, aiming to raise forest cover in northern China from 5% to 15% by 2050. China's government reported completing a 3,000-kilometer green belt around the Taklamakan Desert in 2024. But the program has faced setbacks, including a disease outbreak in 2000 that destroyed about one billion poplar trees in Ningxia. Ecologists caution that fast-growing monoculture plantations support less biodiversity and can strain groundwater resources. The study's authors emphasize that natural forests remain irreplaceable for long-term carbon storage and resilience.
