intersecre

Yesterday I cam across an interesting post on the Pruned blog about the desert gardeners of the Tarim Desert Highway in China.

The highway crosses the Taklamakan desert from north to south with a ‘total length of the highway is 552km; approximately 446km of the highway cross uninhabited areas covered by shifting sand dunes, making it the longest such highway in the world.’ ( Wikipedia)

[Taklamakan desert from space: Farinda]

While on the surface the venture appears driven by China’s desire for oil and gas, the post also suggests an even more sinister motive; ‘the important tactical infrastructure of pacification through which state control, in the guise of “economic development,” can easier be meted throughout the mainly Muslim and violence-prone region.’

For along the entire length of the highway Chinese keep the shifting desert sands at bay by planting and tending what would have to be one of the longest “green belts” in the world. The post describes them as essentially living solitary lives, “an eccentric group of monastic botanists in a mystical struggle to arrest this ephemeral landscape in time and space.”

[image: MC Masterchef]

Unfortunately I can’t embed the National Geo image capturing the gardening and dwellings here but make sure you check it out on the Pruned blog.

There’s a lot we can learn from their practices.

However, I can’t really get over the absurdity of humankind thinking it can ever hold back the forces of nature, be they shifting desert sands or the tides.