Climate change: 20% of China is now desert.

Sean Gallagher is a photojournalist living in China. With the support of Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting to highlight the impact of desertification in China.

Almost 20% of China's land is now desert, affecting 400 million people. In Western China over one million acres of fertile land turn into desert. Per year. Last year they suffered a peak drought.

Climate change, wind and water erosion, industrialization, agriculture, untimely policy changes, you name it.



China's desertification is not only a problem for the Chinese. It impacts the world as a whole. I am not talking about what 1,000,000 acres of desert mean to the world's climate, alone: the more fertile land turns into sand, the more China is looking for agriculture land abroad, competing with European biofuel companies and Arab countries trying to secure their food production too. And money buys land in Africa. Easily. Even if this means they need to reduce their own food production.

Video courtesy Sean Gallagher. Discovered via Resolve and Duckrabbit