The forest coverage rate in the Xihaigu area of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region —located in the region's southern mountainous area — has increased to 28.4 percent three years after a plan was announced to improve the local ecology.

In the 1960s, the forest coverage rate was 22 percent, and that hadn't changed much by 1972, when the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations declared the Xihaigu area one of the world's most uninhabitable places because of its dry climate, high mountains and generally harsh natural environment.

Since 2017, under a local government plan to plant more vegetation and help local farmers rise from poverty, grassland has increased from 35 percent to 73 percent.