Located in the heart of Maowusu, one of China's four vast sandy areas, 82-year-old Otgongerel's hometown, Wushenzhao in Inner Mongolia, was a rich grassland many centuries ago.
When she was a child, her grandparents told her stories of the endless grasslands, the gurgling streams and the magnificent herds covering emerald hills.
"Though the grassland's former glory was no more when I was little, my hometown was still surrounded by small pastures and fertile lands. But the environment started to deteriorate in the 1950s due to overgrazing. Since then, our nightmare began," she said.
Sandstorms destroyed the last greenery in Wushinju. The once beautiful grassland was devoured by moving dunes, which accounted for 54 per cent of Wushinju's territory. A local ballad depicted the despair of Otgongerel and her people: "Sandstorm turns the world into pitch black in daytime, dust and sadness eternally shroud sour eyesight."
"As a mother, I don't want my children to suffer such despair. Along with people in our town, I started to plant trees in the desert," said Otgongerel.
So to restore her hometown to its former glory, she spent her whole life planting trees, creating an oasis out of the desert – no mean feat. Without machinery and modern transportation, Otgongerel and her friends had to carry saplings into the deserts by hand.
Even essential equipment was hard to acquire, as each household only had one spade.
"Many people believed that planting trees in the desert was asking for the moon, but I knew the only way to survive was to bring greenery back to our home," said Otgongerel.
Decades of hard work finally paid off. The once sandstorm-stricken area is now covered by 38,600 hectares of forest. Local vegetation coverage has risen from 28 per cent in the 1970s to 80 per cent in 2019.
Otgongerel's story has inspired many, especially women. Otgonhuar, 43, is one. She became the only female leader of 288 local sand control teams and has afforested over 2000 hectares of the desert in a decade.
Living in Duguitala, a small village nestled in the Kubuqi Desert, China's seventh-largest desert, Otgonhuar used to hate her hometown and the deserts surrounding it: "When I was a kid, moving dunes would block our doorway overnight and we had to fight our way out from the windows. Our houses were constantly buried under sand, so we had to move quite often."
Otgonhuar's parents saved money and sent her to an outside school, hoping she could escape the fate torturing her family for generations.
"The children at my school didn't want to play with me, all calling me dirty chick from the desert. They teased me, saying that people living in the desert never wash their necks, and for this, I had a nasty fight with a boy," said Otgonhuar.
Throughout her childhood, Otgonhuar had only one purpose; to stay as far away from the desert and her hometown as possible. She found a job as an accountant in a nearby city, but her heart was never at peace.
"When I thought about my family and other households still living in the desert, I felt pain. No one deserved such a horrible life and I hoped I could do something to change the situation so that our kids would not be called dirty desert people any more," said Otgonhuar.
While working in the city, Otgonhuar learned about Otgongerel. She decided to bring greenery and wealth to her hometown, too. In 1997, when she heard local authorities had decided to build a 115km road connecting the desert to the outside world, as well as plant trees to tackle desertification, she immediately quit her job and joined the cause.
"My family was appalled by the decision. My siblings called me dumb, my mother cried and lashed me with her shoes. But my mind was settled. Running away from my hometown was never the answer; I needed to change it for the better," said Otgonhuar.
Many people ridiculed Otgonhuar for her "hallucination," while some exhorted her to behave like "an ordinary woman," to serve her family and find a decent job.
"People told me that planting trees was not a job for a woman. I wanted to prove that women are as strong as men and we can make our contribution to stopping the spread of desert," she said.
In 2007, Otgonhuar received an offer from a local company to plant trees in the Kubuqi Desert. She gathered 24 workers from poor families, beginning her tree-planting business. To gather water for the saplings, she had to trudge deep into the desert; to plant trees, she had to get up before dawn and climb dunes, sometimes through sandstorms.
Often the trees she planted were buried beneath sand overnight and the tent she lived in was shattered by strong winds. But her efforts paid off, as her first batch of trees reached a survival rate of over 85 per cent.
Her husband, who had originally refused to support her, decided to become her assistant, while those who once made fun of her, especially women, started to join her team – now often hired by local companies to plant trees in the desert. Under her leadership, 25 low-income workers now earn a daily wage of around 200 RMB (US$29), while she earns over 200,000 RMB per year.
Thanks to the work of women like Otgongerel and Otgonhuar, about 70 per cent of Maowusu and 25 per cent of the Kubuqi Desert have undergone afforestation.
This article was originally produced and published by People's Daily Online. View the original at en.people.cn.