-- Chinese researchers are dedicated to developing new techniques to combat desertification in China, which in the past 20 years has contributed to the world's largest greening areas. China also shared its experience in sand control with other countries.

-- For researchers, the ultimate goal of sand control is not to eliminate the deserts, but to improve the biodiversity of desert ecosystems and find a way for humans and deserts to live harmoniously.

YINCHUAN, June 17 -- A strong wind blew over Zhongwei, a city near the Tengger Desert in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, one of the driest places in the country, covering everything with a thin layer of dust.

Zhao Yang, an associate fellow at Shapotou Desert Research and Experiment Station (SDRES) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was working in a lab culturing a kind of cyanobacteria that is key to new desert-control technology.

The station was the birthplace of vast stretches of artificial straw-checkerboard, a technique to stop sand encroachment that was implemented in China over 60 years ago.

Today, Chinese researchers at SDRES are dedicated to developing new techniques to combat desertification in China, which in the past 20 years has contributed to the world's largest greening areas.