Editors’ notes：

Young people are the most vigorous and enterprising… A nation will be full of hope and have a great tomorrow when its younger generations have ideals, ability, and a strong sense of responsibility.

"The Power of Youth and Dreams," a series co-created by Hinews and Hainan International Media Center, puts the spotlight on ten Chinese and foreign young people who have pursued their aspirations and forged shining stories rooted in openness and innovation during their many years in Hainan and China. Through their actions, they demonstrate their shouldering of social responsibility, becoming a bridge for intercultural exchanges. Their stories motivate others to realize their dreams in China and contribute their efforts to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

 

 

King grass, stylosanthes, chamaecrista rotundifolia... in the eyes of ordinary people, these grasses and roadside weeds are no different from each other, but when Dong Rongshu of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences mentions them, it’s clear that he knows them as well as his own children. For this PhD who has spent his career studying forage science, these small forage grasses can play an outsize role in managing wastelands.

Photos provided by Dong Rongshu

In karst areas, after most of the vegetation is destroyed, the land undergoes serious degradation, forming large areas of rocky desert. In China, the problem of desertification in the Yunnan Province, Guizhou Province, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is quite severe. To combat this issue and increase the incomes of local farmers, Dong and his team have taken made use of of Hainan’s natural advantages, conducting research, evaluation, selection, and improvement of forage grasses, then transplanting suitable varieties to the rocky desert areas of Yunnan Province, Guizhou Province, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Over the past ten years, through planting fruit trees, orchids, and forage grasses as well as raising livestock and poultry, the concept of ‘first manage the economy, then manage the rocky soil, and then the ecological environment’ has been put into action, turning this land of stone into a ‘fruit and flower mountain’ and harvesting a happy life on this stony mountain.