Environmental Club members embark on a journey to Inner Mongolia
This past Tomb Sweeping holiday, eleven members of the Environmental Club travelled with Dr. Peter Griffin to Inner Mongolia to plant and prune trees for Roots and Shoots’ Million Tree Project. Roots and Shoots is a worldwide organization that strives to make the world a better and greener place by planting trees and initiating environment-friendly activities. The Million Tree Project in China strives to plant trees in Inner Mongolia, in order to reforest the areas that have been deserted due to deforestation.
The members of the club left on the morning of the 5th of April and returned the evening of the 8th, spending a total of 4 days and 3 nights in Inner Mongolia. They went to the city of Tongliao, which is a five-hour bus ride away from the nearest city in the region with an airport–Shenyang. On the first day of their trip, they took a two-hour plane in the morning to Shenyang. Upon arrival, they met with the other schools and had some lunch, then they boarded the bus to Shenyang and braced themselves for a five-hour bus ride. The welcome dinner that day was at the hotel and featured many different cultural performances by the Inner Mongolian people. They ate traditional Inner Mongolian food and listened to Chinese songs sung by various Inner Mongolian singers.
The following day consisted of a trip to a nearby desert, where all students and teachers explored the sandy land and walked around with their friends, taking pictures and playing in the sand. After that, they rode the bus to the 2010 Million Tree Project plantation site, where trees had been growing and flourishing for over eight years. The next day was the most important day of the entire trip since they were going to be planting trees. They spent the whole day at the plantation site, working along with the other schools and planting saplings.
The trip had a magnificent effect on their personal lives, as they were able to take a well-deserved break from school, hang out with old and new friends, make a difference, and have fun. Cynthia Cheung (10A) said, “I think that the coolest part of the trip was being able to make so many new friends, and see this completely new place that I would never have visited or thought about had it not been for this project. ” They were also able to learn about desertification and how it affects the land and the people living on it, they also experienced all of the effects firsthand. “I think the biggest takeaway I was the wake-up call to being more aware of our environment. This was something that could have been stopped if people took the proper precautions- a philosophy which should be applied to not only combat desertification, but global warming, overuse of plastics, and many other [things],” said Ryan Shen (10A), when asked about what he learnt from this trip.
Desertification is a large ongoing problem that is affecting more and more land as the world develops and the population increases. Today, according to United Nations statistics, 17.2% of the land on Earth is arid or semi-arid and desertification affects water scarcity, climate change, food and land degradation. As Ryan Shen so skillfully puts it, “The magnitude and severity of these problems are not be ignored if we are to have a cleaner, brighter future.”
Featured Image – Two volunteers prepare to plant sapling Photo Courtesy of Anouckjin Jayasuryan