Inner Mongolian herder Dorj looked bitterly at the vast grasslands where his flock once grazed freely, before the practice was banned as part of a massive Chinese state greening project.

Restrictions on traditional grazing are a key part of China¡¯s ¡°Great Green Wall¡± campaign, a decades-old anti-desertification project credited with ¡°greening¡± over 90 million hectares.

The campaign initially aimed to contain the expansion of deserts in the arid north caused by intensive farming, grazing, mining and climate change.