The Ant Forest initiative leverages a mobile app to incentivize low-carbon activities, converting them into virtual "green energy" that users can exchange for planting real trees in desertified regions of China, thereby combating desertification and fostering biodiversity.
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And I know you're probably looking at
this teeny fragile thing thinking, "What
He thought it was just a game, like a
virtual tree that you collect like
Hello everyone from the desert. Today
I'm going to show you guys trees. Lots
of trees. Way more trees than you would
This is what this place looked like 10
years ago. Empty barren sand. And now it
Okay, let me explain. There are two
different types of deserts in this
world. One is the type that is naturally
dry and just doesn't support any
vegetation like this place. So, natural
deserts are okay. There's nothing we can
do about them. But we don't want the
natural desert to expand beyond its
boundaries and start consuming land that
was being used to grow things. This
desert might look perfectly still, but
it's actually always on the move. Just a
few decades ago, whenever the wind
picked up, this whole place would turn
into a massive sandstorm, and the desert
was creeping south by more than 10
meters every single year, which doesn't
sound like much, but in Earth time,
that's super fast. But over the past 10
years, Ant Forest has helped over
600,000 trees take root here. And one of
those hundreds of thousands of trees is
mine. The first time I ever heard of Ant
Forest was when they won the 2019
Champions of the Earth award, and I've
been planting trees with them ever
since. You might be wondering how I
could possibly plant a tree all the way
out here when I've been living in
Nanjing and Hanjo all these years. Well,
let me explain to you how it works.
Lowcarbon activities like taking public
transport, using public share bikes, and
paying bills online convert to green
energy in the Alipay app. Not only can
you collect your own green energy, you
can also steal it from your friends. And
once you collect enough green energy,
they plant a tree on your behalf. Not
just here in Inner Mongolia, all over
China. So all these years I've just been
planting trees remotely. And now I
finally get a chance to plant a tree in
person with about 300 other people who
have come here from all around the
country. Now we're on a 10 km trek from
the middle of the desert to the
beautiful oasis that Antforest created
with the help of countless enthusiastic
Alipe users. Over the past 5 years, I've
planted 11 trees with Antestone. How
many trees have you planted? >> 12.
>> 12.
>> A planted more trees than me. But let me
tell you guys something funny. When he
first started using this app, he thought
it was just a game, like a virtual tree
that you collect like Pokemon. And I was
the one who informed him that actually
they are planting real trees. And now we
are here seeing them with our own eyes.
>> Yeah, that's nice.
It was super cool to meet all these tree
planting enthusiasts from around the
Interestingly, he actually was not the
only bug I encountered in these empty
looking dunes. There were actually a lot
of beetles crawling around. Guys, this
is the most exciting moment of this
bug's entire life. It's like, what is
that? This is the equivalent of like an
alien dropping down out of the sky. And
finally, as we approached the forest, we
started seeing other creatures. Guys, we
finally found a life form other than
beetles and a cockroach. There's a
lizard in these bushes. Look at its
little curly tail. Most of the wildlife
in these desert adjacent ecosystems
tends to be pretty small. But in some of
the other places where ant forest has
planted trees or sponsored wildlife
protection zones, you can see much
bigger animals. Whenever people think of
China, what comes to mind is giant
highrises or ancient villages or things
related to human civilization. But
there's actually a lot of nature in this
country. Wish I could see it with my own
eyes, but these creatures will not let
humans get anywhere near them.
>> Rightfully so, I suppose, because
throughout our history, humans have been
a very destructive species. But
fortunately, we are doing the very
opposite of that today. And I know
you're probably looking at this teeny
fragile thing, what is that? It's just a
little twig, right? This is what it
takes to restore a desert. You can't
just plop down some giant woody tree
here and expect it to thrive. You have
to start from these little hearty,
resilient shrubs. It's very tiny on the
surface, but it has the longest root
network you've ever dang seen. Most of
this plant is actually underground. So,
you might think you're looking at an
insignificant little shrub, but that
shrub is holding together so much soil.
That shrub has sent roots this deep just
TO FIND WATER. THAT shrub is working its
butt off to survive in this inhospitable
landscape. You can actually feel the
difference in the soil if you touch
this. It's firm like a skin over top of
the dirt instead of back there in the
dunes where the sand is blowing around
all over the place. And it's this layer
that helps to trap the soil in place and
protect it from wind or from being
washed away so that we can have a
healthy ecosystem here. The grass is way
thicker in the places where trees have
been planted. And you can also see more
bugs and small animals. This whole area
used to be a dead zone and it's so nice
to see life making a comeback. Something
I love about this forest is that the
trees are not planted in perfect rows.
They're scattered around in little
clusters here and there. It's not a
monoculture with just one species. We
have different species of tree all
coexisting, mimicking the way trees
actually grow in nature. I know humans
are very perfectionist and we love our
rose, but that's not how nature works.
Nature actually likes a little bit of
chaos because that creates a healthy
habitat with varied and diverse
environments. That's why my lawn is full
of weeds because that's nature. It is a
thriving habitat. Okay. And this is also
a thriving habitat with a bunch of
different plants all together in here.
Because planting trees isn't just about
greenifying the landscape. You want to
create a biodiverse ecosystem that will
last way longer than our own lifespans.
Worldwide, we've been losing forests at
an unsustainable rate over the past few
decades. But the good news is
deforestation trends are slowly
beginning to reverse in some places
thanks to better protection efforts and
Thank you. We won a prize.
>> Okay, Ace won the prize. Destruction
happens in the blink of an eye, but
growing it back is incredibly slow,
especially in regions threatened by
desertification. Conditions are
unforgiving out here, and the ant forest
team has to work hard to make sure the
trees survive. And today, we're going to
experience a little bit of that
firsthand. It's a tougher task than it
looks. You have to get all the loose
sand out of the way before you can even
start digging. In the big cities, it
feels like change is happening by the
second. There's always some new
technology, some AI thing. The rat race
is intense, and humans are endlessly
scrambling for limited resources. But
here, it feels like a completely
different world.
>> Life here moves slowly. I can just sit
on a sand dune and zone out and watch a
tiny bug crawl home. It takes me a long
time to collect enough green energy just
to plant one tree. And all these little
tiny trees that we just planted, it will
take years for them to grow even as tall
as my thigh. And it will take them about
a decade to grow this big. That is a
level of patience that my 5-second
attention span cannot comprehend. For
the past decade, while much of the world
has been busy keeping up with the rat
race, there's been this group of people
here in China focused on just one thing,
planting trees. Their mission is to take
this barren desert land and one tree at
a time, turn it into a home where life
can take root again. Being here, you
feel a totally different rhythm to life.
You let time run its course. The
progress might be incredibly slow, but
if you just keep at it, change does
happen. Anyway, regardless of what's
going on in the rest of the world, I
will continue to collect green energy
with Ant forest and continue to plant
these cute little trees. It is one teeny
tiny contribution that I can make to a
greener and more beautiful world. And I
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