- The "straw checkerboards" — simple grids of straw and saplings — have become the iconic face of China’s decades‑long Three‑North or "Green Great Wall" effort to hold back desert.
- Millions of workers, and locals like sand‑control veteran Yin Yuzhen, helped turn sand into greenery: forest cover rose from about 5% in 1978 to 14% in 2022 and severe desertification has dropped substantially.
- Scientists warn the progress is fragile and needs decades more of water, soil care, monitoring and ties to local livelihoods to be sustained.
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