From "Ten Thousand Million Project" to "Ant Forest"

The "Green Governance" China program is recognized by the world

From beautiful countryside to technology planting trees. After the “Demonstration of Thousands of Villages and Renovation of Ten Thousands of Villages” project carried out by Zhejiang Province for a long time last year for 15 years, it won the “Guardian of the Earth Award (Award for Incentive and Action Category)” issued by the United Nations Environment Programme. On the 27th, Beijing time, Alipay Ant The forest also won this honor.

This UN's highest-level environmental protection award has been awarded to green innovations and actors from China for the third year. From the three generations of afforesters in Saihanba, to the "Ten Thousand Million Project" in Zhejiang Province, to the Ant Forest, China's new path and valuable experience in promoting green environmental protection are being recognized by the world.

Environmental awareness behind a tree

This is a small county town in the northwest that can only speak with the wind. However, a mobile phone planting application has changed the state of the struggle between generations of people here. Minqin County, under the jurisdiction of Wuwei City, Gansu Province, is covered with deserts on three sides. The wind is strong and the trees are bald. If you speak in the wind, you will eat the sand. Only one species of Haloxylon ammodendron that is particularly adaptable to saline soil can survive.

Since 2016, when someone stamps a small sapling in Alipay Ant Forest, a Haloxylon tree will be planted in the Haloxylon forest here. In the past three years, about 500 million people have "planted" 122 million real trees through this mobile app. On average, about 110,000 trees are planted in deserts like Minqin County every day.

"Three years ago, the day my child was born, the Haloxylon tree on the mobile phone was also planted." Jiang Shengjue from Fujian walked with his wife every day during her pregnancy, accumulating a lot of "energy" in the ant forest. When the child was born, he happened to grow a virtual shuttle tree in the ant forest on the phone.

In Alashan, Inner Mongolia, a real Haloxylon tree was planted in this severely desertified area for almost the same time. The birth of a child and the birth of a tree span more than 2,400 kilometers and are closely linked together.

Because the child was still young, Jiang Sheng could only take the child's photo to Alxa to see the tree connected to his destiny. He hopes that when the child understands, tell him the story of this tree, so that the child will know how to protect the earth from an early age.

How did a virtual tree on the phone become a real tree thousands of kilometers away?

The carbon emissions saved by users walking instead of driving, paying water, electricity and gas fees online, and refusing to use disposable tableware and plastic bags will be calculated as virtual "green energy", which can be used to grow virtual trees in their mobile phones. Tree. After the virtual tree grows, Ant Forest and public welfare partners will plant a real tree on the earth, or guard the corresponding area of ​​the protected area.

Although the trees planted by the ant forest account for very little in the country's total artificial forestation, one of its value lies in arousing hundreds of millions of people's love for public welfare and environmental protection.

80 grams means taking a bus once, and 52 grams means taking a subway. The shared bicycle is 1.8 grams per minute. The more steps you take, the higher the accumulated "green energy"... The post-90s Hangzhou guy Shen Junliang talks about the energy of Ant Forest The emergence of it couldn't be more familiar. "It's not an alarm clock that wakes me up every day, but a green game called "Ant Forest"." Shen Junliang said, he has developed the habit of getting up early every day to collect green energy.

is also awakened by his environmental awareness. For 3 years, he kept running every day, harvested "green energy", and planted 13 real trees in the desert. Now he has become an environmental engineer and has been fighting in the field of environmental protection. "Everyone hates smog and loves blue sky. Most people are willing to do something to reduce smog, but it is difficult to persist. Because of the immediate positive feedback from Ant Forest, I persevere." He said.

The green behind a city alleviates poverty

For most tree planters in Minqin County, planting trees is not a belief. First, it is the opportunity and hope to solve the life of the whole family. There is an immigrant village near the county seat. It has just moved down from the mountain at the beginning of this year. It is not a problem for children to go to school, but it is still very difficult for a family’s labor force to find a job.

But now, all the adults in the village have a new rush to plant an ant forest. In terms of actual effects, Ant Forest has promoted employment and economic development in impoverished areas in China to a certain extent. As of August 2019, Ant Forest has created more than 400,000 green employment opportunities, such as planting and maintaining trees, patrolling protected areas, etc., achieving an increase in labor income of more than 60 million yuan.

Nie Yusheng, a herder from Alashan, Inner Mongolia, is one of them. He is now a forest ranger in the Ant Forest and looks after more than 2,000 hectares of forest.

"Unexpectedly, an ordinary herder like me can also participate in helping change the environment. In just three years, the land I live in has become greener. There is also my work here." 57-year-old Nie Yusheng said.

Beginning in 2018, the Alibaba Eco-Poverty Alleviation Team relied on the Ant Forest platform to help localities achieve sustainable, participatory, and learnable poverty alleviation and prosperity through the two models of "public welfare protected areas" and "ecological economic forests."

Qingshuihe County, one of the poorest counties in Inner Mongolia, 10,000 mu of sea buckthorn planted in the Ant Forest has become a "money cow" for local people to get rid of poverty. County Mayor Kang Yongqiang said, “The ant forest not only alleviates desertification, but also brings benefits to the local people. By picking seabuckthorn, you can earn up to 40,000 to 50,000 yuan a year.”

In addition, there are more ways to diversify local economic development. In March this year, a couple from Zhengzhou, Henan went to the Alashan Desert in Minqin, Gansu to take wedding photos. The bride said that she planted a tree after harvesting energy for half a year and wanted to see it. Among so many trees, she planted one tree.

You Shengde, who runs a travel company in Hangzhou, discovered that many people who play Ant Forest will have the idea of ​​"seeing on the spot". He spotted this opportunity, negotiated with Ant Forest, and organized a group of tourists to visit the Ant Forest in Alashan, Inner Mongolia. They tried to use travel to integrate into the local economic development.

In the statement of Inge Annoson, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, “innovation” was mentioned many times. Like Alibaba, more and more Chinese Internet companies are trying to stimulate the positive energy and innovative actions of global users through technology, thereby changing our world.

The sonorous voice of "green governance" in a country

In April last year, an official from the United Nations Environment Program visited many places in Zhejiang and spoke highly of and admired Zhejiang’s green development achievements. He said: “What I saw in Pujiang and Anji, Zhejiang, is the future of China. Appearance, even the appearance of the future world."

Zhejiang is just a microcosm of China's voice of "green governance" to the world. In the satellite images and data released by NASA in February this year, we see that China is becoming more and more "green." Over the past 20 years, more than 2 million square miles (about 518 million hectares) of vegetation have been added to the surface of the earth, which is equivalent to an extra piece of Amazonian rainforest. The main contribution to this is the leading and promoting role played by China and India.

According to researchers at Boston University, China and India account for only 9% of the global land area, but they contribute as much as one-third of the global green area growth. The data provided by the study also showed that the newly-added green area in India mainly comes from agriculture, accounting for 82%; while 42% of the newly-added green area in China comes from tree planting and afforestation.

In recent years, China’s concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains" has entered the United Nations, and China has also promoted the construction of ecological civilization to an unprecedented level.

Kumar, a professor of environmental protection at the University of Delhi, India, said that China’s proposal of ecological civilization is an important part of the overall national governance strategy, as well as the green governance content of the global governance China plan. contribute.

In fact, whether it is a "ten million project" or an ant forest, the logic behind it is the relationship between economic development and ecological environmental protection. Develop while protecting, and protect while developing.

China's "green governance" program is going abroad. Inspired by Ant Forest, on June 25, 2019, GCash, a mobile payment platform known as "Alipay in the Philippines" with 15 million users, also launched "GCash Forest" to encourage citizens to participate in environmental protection and afforestation. It is understood that this is also the first time that a Chinese enterprise's digital technology public welfare model has gone overseas.

Relying on the technical support of Alipay, in the Philippine version of "Ant Forest", local users can also accumulate green energy through a green and low-carbon lifestyle, plant a real tree, and finally harvest a forest.

"The development of digital technology public welfare knows no borders. A beautiful living environment is the common pursuit of people all over the world, and it is also the best wealth we can leave to the next generation." Ant Financial Chairman and CEO Jing Xiandong said today The aura of "Guardians of the Earth" should be given to young people. It is their participation and drive that has made Ant Forest, the world's largest platform for individual participation in environmental governance.

Article source: Environmental Protection 114