In July, the sun in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region’s Ulan Buh Desert beats down hard enough to scorch exposed skin. Gusts of wind occasionally sweep up grains of sand that strike the face like pellets.
Zhang Wenguo, 63 years old, wears a straw hat and layers of clothing as he kneels on the sand with his co-workers, installing drip-irrigation lines. Zhang has lived and worked in the Ulan Buh Desert for more than four years, working on a desert-restoration project run by the Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology Foundation, known as the SEE Foundation.
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Cover Story: Sands of Time Ticking on China’s Fight to Hold Back the Desert
