Fighting the sands of time与时间之沙抗争

2022-01-17安徽王涛涛

疯狂英语·新悦读 2021年11期

安徽王涛涛

“沙漠愚公”王有德：生命不息，治沙不止。

1Wang Youde remembers a time when his hometown in Lingwu city,Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region,was covered in sand.The expansion of the desert occupied the farmlands,houses and hometown,and tens of thousands of people had to move away.This drove him to fight against desertification,and “regain the land robbed by the desert”.

2In 1985,when he worked as deputy director of Baijitan National Nature Reserve in Lingwu,he began his mission,leading his colleagues into battle against the sand.Later he became director of the reserve.Planting trees in Baijitan was an arduous task.What's worse,the battle required the effort of a large number of people,but few were willing to engage in the tough cause.

3As a result,Wang reformed the income distribution system of the reserve,enabling people to earn more according to the results of their work.He also proposed an annual target:everyone was set the task of making 10,000 straw checkerboard barriers,digging holes for and planting 10,000 trees over an area of 6.67 hectares.

4He and his colleagues developed an effective method to not only control the sand in Baijitan,but also enable people to gain more income from the cause.At first,they planted sand-fixation forests along the outer reaches of the desert to form the first line of ecological defense,and then planted primary forest belts along trunk canals and roads to form a second.With the dual protection,they were able to divert（转移）sand and water to create fields,upon which they planted fruit forests and nursery （苗圃）gardens—providing another source of income for people.They also planted grass for grazing livestock and developed animal husbandry（农牧业）,using the manure（肥料；粪肥）to help fertilize the fields.

5Over the years,Baijitan,which had bad ecological conditions and fixed assets of only 400,000 yuan before 1985,has grown to be a national-level reserve with good infrastructure,rich biodiversity and fixed assets of nearly 100 million yuan.

6Wang retired in 2014,but he continued to lead people in planting trees on a barren mountain not far from Yinchuan Hedong International Airport—doing so at a rate of 66.7 hectares a year.His work has contributed valuable experience to the prevention and control of desertification in China.In 2019,he was awarded the national honorary title of “People's Role Model” at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.