Winner
Desert Danger
Kau Yan School, Rebecca May Gittings, Non-Fiction: Group 1
T
he Gobi Desert is often called one of “Earth’s miracles.” This enormous desert covers about
500,000 square miles of northern China and southern Mongolia. The Gobi is a unique
mixture of sand, stone and rock and is famous for many reasons. It is where the first
dinosaur eggs were found, and is also home to many unique species of animals and birds.
Recently, these animals and birds have been endangered by environmental pollution caused
by industrialisation in the Gobi. For example, scientists estimate that there may be as few as 20-
25 Gobi bears remaining, all living in an area called the Great Gobi Strictly Protected Area.
But while the Gobi is a treasure, it can cause many negative effects if it grows too large. That
is the biggest problem the Earth is facing from the Gobi Desert right now.
The Gobi Desert is currently expanding by five to eight metres per year. There are more than
4,000 villages around the Gobi Desert threatened by desertification. As the Gobi expands, it
brings serious sandstorms to Beijing and other cities.
There are many reasons for the desertification of the Gobi. These include climate change,
overgrazing, overhunting, deforestation, mining and the depletion of water resources.
There are some trees that slow desertification, like the saxaul tree. The Chinese government
has tried to control desertification by planting a barrier of trees around the Gobi called the Green
Wall of China. The Green Wall of China includes more than 64 billion trees.
But this cannot stop desertification, because it only addresses a few of the causes. If we really
want to stop desertification, we also need to solve all of these problems.
To solve the problems of overgrazing and overhunting is the responsibility of the people living
in the Gobi. They have to stop taking so much land for their cattle, and they should also stop
hunting so many animals. To solve the problem of mining is the responsibility of big companies
in big cities. They have to realise the damage they are doing and stop mining so much.
To solve the problem of climate change is the responsibility of the whole world. This does the
worst damage and also harms many other parts of the world. Even if we live on the other side
of the world, we still can help to stop desertification by changing our lifestyle to become more
environmentally friendly.
Let’s hope the whole world will work together to solve the problem of desertification before it
spreads even further across Asia.
