China

To continue living in this land without losing to desertification

OISCA has established a base for operations for the prevention of desertification in Alaxa, Inner Mongolia which is said to be one of the source regions of the yellow sand, and is tackling greening activities together with the local people. We are also putting effort on the diffusion of environment-friendly industry such as cultivating herbs which become herbal medicine. 

Participating Children forest program

Xilinhot No.6 High School is located in Xilinhot city in inner Mongolian Autonomous Region eastern part and there are 5,060 students. This school opened in 1993 and relatively new school. The school has done advanced education as model school of region.

They are interested in environmental conservation and greening. They focus on environmental education so that they are received recommendation by local government.

Student Volunteer thinks about environmental issues

School of Foreign Languages Shanxi Normal University is located in Northwest China in the ancient capital Xi'an. The University focuses on education. The university has English and Russian courses besides Japanese, and graduates are employed in Japanese companies in the northwest area.

OISCA members, CFP school's students and many friends participated actively in the Green Wave 2018!

The Green Wave is a global biodiversity campaign to educate children and youth about biodiversity. Towards 2020, last year of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity (2011-2020), the United Nations has been appealing more vigorously for its promotion worldwide. 

Children struggle

to fight against desertification!

   In this school located in the heart of Alashan, they are putting effort on environmental beautification. The area is dry highlands with annual rainfalls of 400mm, only one-third of Tokyo and the average temperature in winter is minus 11 degrees Celsius. The surrounding area is desert where plants are sparse. As there are many children who have no experience in tackling anti-desertification, the school joined CFP to carry out practical environmental education. 

Aiming to develop

green FURUSATO

   This school is a large school with 1,200 students located in the eastern part of Xilinhot City, Inner Mongolia. Since the school is for the ethnic Mongolian people, the students are mostly children of nomads and very sensitive about the desertification problem which is directly related with their family business. The CFP activities started in 2014 in the strong hope of improving the local environment. In the past, the activities have focused on environmental education such as seminars, but in 2016, they planted shrub named Salix psammophila effective for preventing dust.

The children listened attentively to the talks of the Buddhist monks (Lama) who said: “About 60 years ago, green trees were abundant here. But there were a lot of grasses with thorns, and so, we could not go inside the forests”

The children who learned that the desert land nowadays had once been rich in green glasses, were strongly encouraged with hope of being able to restore green in this land.

The left side photo depicts a scene from the “fire festival” of the Mongolian tribe. On this day, the children went to the desert with the monks, learned how to use fire, listened old tales and talks about environment by the OISCA staff.

They spent a memorable day. With the recent economic growth of China, there has been an increasing awareness for environmental protection in the Inner Mongolian region, too. It is a big change that there are now requests from school teachers for environment education programs. OISCA intends to strive for responding to these requests.

(Alaxa Saki Mongolian Tribe No. 1 Experimental Elementary School)

Program starting year: 2008 Number of students: 400