Team:FAFU-CHINA/Excellence in Another Area
Desertification
Desertification is a worldwide difficult problem. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the areas of the world that have been and are expected to be affected by desertification account for about 35 percent of the world's land area. On average, 50,000 to 70,000 square kilometers of land are desertified every year in the world. Over the past half century, desertification in Africa's southern Sahara desert has expanded by 650,000 square kilometers. China is also one of the countries most affected by desertification in the world. Desertification affects the environment on a global and regional scale. The affected areas may sometimes lie thousands of kilometres from desertified areas. For example, processes associated with desertification, such as reduced vegetation cover, increase aerosol and dust formation. These, in turn, affect cloud formation and rainfall patterns, the global carbon cycle and the biodiversity. For example, visibility in Beijing is often adversely affected by spring sandstorms from the Gobi desert. Large dust storms from China can affect the Korean Peninsula and Japan, and have even been observed to affect air quality in North America. The increase in sandstorms associated with desertification is widely recognized as a cause of poor health (fever, cough and sore eyes) during the dry season. Dust from East Asia and the Sahara desert, and even as far away as North America, has caused respiratory problems and affected coral reefs in the Caribbean. It is worth noting that effective desertification prevention requires a macro-policy approach for local management and the promotion of sustainability in ecosystem services. It is better to focus on prevention, since efforts to rehabilitate desertified areas are costly and often have limited results.
In recent years, however, Professor Zhanxi Lin and his team have demonstrated that JunCao has the potential to change this and become an "effective tool" for controlling desertification. The utilization of solar energy of JunCao has been shown to be 4-7.46 times than of broad-leaved forest in temperate regions, and its output can reach 300 tons per hectare.Using JunCao ecological technology to control desert is highy efficient,which also can use the advantage of rich solar resources in a desert region to convert solar energy into livestock feed, medicinal food bacteria substrates, the biomass of new energy effectively. This can not only improve the ecological environment, but also produce huge economic and social benefits, and create a new way of sustainable development.
In the future, we plan to cooperate with Alibaba's ant Forest and the China Greening Foundation to cultivate Juncao to solve desertification and produce bio-energy. Since 2017, ANT FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP has donated capital to China green foundation to set up “Ant Forest" public welfare project.
Through online interactive combining with offline work, ANT FOREST has planted Haloxylon ammodendrona ,Salix cheilophila and other plants in Alashan, Ordos, Bayinnaoer, Tgo, Chifeng and Minqin county etc. Ant Forest project is a new mode of integrating business and public welfare, and also an innovation of the current mode of public participation in land greening. Internet users acquire virtual "green energy" through low-carbon behaviors such as walking instead of driving, paying water, gas and electricity bills online and buying tickets online, and then adopt virtual trees in the "Ant Forest" product, in turn, Ant Financial has donated money to plant real trees in the desert. Ant Forest public welfare project is different from traditional forestation project, which pursuits high quality of afforestation, reforestation process with fully transparent, that afforestation achievement can not only view on Satellite Image Map and navigation to afforestation plot, clients can also in see his tree through the electronic scarecrow eye in app. The public also can see the changes of the earth through low earth orbit satellites. With the influence and promotion of more than 500 million netizens, the project has become a project of high social concern and sensitivity, and a new social hot spot. By March 2020, the cumulative carbon emission reduction has reached 11 million tons. So far, 122 million real trees have been planted, covering 1.68 million mu of land. ANT FOREST play multiple demonstration and leading role in expanding the desert oasis, rehabilitating the desertified land, developing the industry in the sand area, increasing the herdsmen income and , improving the local ecological environment and so on.
Idea
We plan to recommend and promote the cultivation of Juncao to the ANT FOREST project leader during the winter vacation this year, so that Juncao can also join the ANT FOREST and become a new landscape in the desert, as Juncao has large biomass.
At the same time, we will apply synthetic biology to improve our project to maximize the energy yield and utilization value of Juncao. As new energy vehicles more and more popular, the public demand for new energy is more and more , I believe that our project has a very broad prospects. We plan to cooperate with the Ant Forest and new energy automobile brand to show the public the change of environment and where Juncao goes.
Once people choose to plant Juncao on ANT FOREST app online, he will see the biological characteristics of Juncao, and observe them by satellite map. Our team will also provide Juncao harvest processing and use understandable language to introduce the use of synthetic biology knowledge, and how convert Juncao to biological energy.
hrough this multi - linkage, I believe that 1+1>2 effect can be produced! Our projects will not only combat desertification and produce bioenergy, but also enable the public to learn more about synthetic biology and have a richer environmental experience!