Aerial photos of Wuqi County: the green-wrapped Loess Plateau

Wuqi County, located in Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, used to be one of the counties with the highest levels of water and soil erosion in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. In 1998, Wuqi County began to explore the project of turning farmland back into forests, and introduced the policy of closing forests and cultivating farmland. In 1999, the government of Yan’an implemented a large-scale project of returning farmland back into forests. Since then, a huge “green storm” has been set off on the Loess Plateau, where the mountains were treeless and the yellow sands were billowing. Today, the Loess Plateau has turned green again.