"I believe that, as a result of our determination, the day will come when all the sand areas around us will be covered with greenery."

Niu Yuqin's words seem believable when you think of the 5,460 hectares of desert area that has been brought under control in her county, with 85 per cent of it replanted with trees and grass.

A native resident of Jinjisha Village in Jingbian County in Yulin, located in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Niu is now the general manager of the Jingbian County Luyuan Sand Control Co Ltd, which is dedicated to sand control in the county.

The county borders the 40,000-square-kilometre Maowusu Sand Area, which covers a large part of the city of Yulin, the southern part of Erdos Plateau, in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Yanchi, Lingwu and Taole counties in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

Niu's fight against the sand started in 1985 when she and her husband Zhang Jiawang signed a contract with the county government on sand control.

In 1988, Zhang died of cancer but Niu still continued the work which, she said, was the common ambition of herself and her husband.
Niu's company, founded in April 1998, has expanded to include both processing fodder for cattle and sheep and raising stock as well as sand control.

The annual income of the company is more than 400,000 yuan (US$4,830) and the sand area brought under control by Niu is called the "green bank" by local residents.

In Dingbian County of Yulin, there is a similar but larger sand control company, which was founded by Shi Guangyin, a local resident, in 1984.
Since 1984 Shi's company, the Dingbian Sand Control Co Ltd, has planted trees and grass on 14,400 hectares of sand in the county. The forest and grass coverage rate ranges from 60 to 90 per cent in different parts of the area.

Unlike Niu, who undertook the sand control work by herself in the beginning, Shi brought together seven families to undertake the work in 1984.
To persuade people to join him, he told them: "If we are to lead a better life, we must bring the sand around us under control."

The value of the forests that Shi's company has planted in sand areas is estimated at 50 million yuan (US$6 million).