0:01 And I know you're probably looking at
0:03 this teeny fragile thing thinking, "What
0:09 He thought it was just a game, like a
0:11 virtual tree that you collect like
0:28 Hello everyone from the desert. Today
0:32 I'm going to show you guys trees. Lots
0:34 of trees. Way more trees than you would
0:47 This is what this place looked like 10
0:52 years ago. Empty barren sand. And now it
1:02 Okay, let me explain. There are two
1:03 different types of deserts in this
1:06 world. One is the type that is naturally
1:07 dry and just doesn't support any
1:10 vegetation like this place. So, natural
1:11 deserts are okay. There's nothing we can
1:12 do about them. But we don't want the
1:15 natural desert to expand beyond its
1:16 boundaries and start consuming land that
1:19 was being used to grow things. This
1:20 desert might look perfectly still, but
1:22 it's actually always on the move. Just a
1:24 few decades ago, whenever the wind
1:25 picked up, this whole place would turn
1:27 into a massive sandstorm, and the desert
1:29 was creeping south by more than 10
1:30 meters every single year, which doesn't
1:32 sound like much, but in Earth time,
1:35 that's super fast. But over the past 10
1:36 years, Ant Forest has helped over
1:40 600,000 trees take root here. And one of
1:43 those hundreds of thousands of trees is
1:45 mine. The first time I ever heard of Ant
1:47 Forest was when they won the 2019
1:49 Champions of the Earth award, and I've
1:50 been planting trees with them ever
1:52 since. You might be wondering how I
1:54 could possibly plant a tree all the way
1:55 out here when I've been living in
1:57 Nanjing and Hanjo all these years. Well,
1:59 let me explain to you how it works.
2:01 Lowcarbon activities like taking public
2:03 transport, using public share bikes, and
2:05 paying bills online convert to green
2:07 energy in the Alipay app. Not only can
2:08 you collect your own green energy, you
2:10 can also steal it from your friends. And
2:12 once you collect enough green energy,
2:14 they plant a tree on your behalf. Not
2:16 just here in Inner Mongolia, all over
2:18 China. So all these years I've just been
2:20 planting trees remotely. And now I
2:22 finally get a chance to plant a tree in
2:24 person with about 300 other people who
2:26 have come here from all around the
2:28 country. Now we're on a 10 km trek from
2:30 the middle of the desert to the
2:32 beautiful oasis that Antforest created
2:34 with the help of countless enthusiastic
2:37 Alipe users. Over the past 5 years, I've
2:40 planted 11 trees with Antestone. How
2:41 many trees have you planted? >> 12.
2:42 >> 12.
2:44 >> A planted more trees than me. But let me
2:45 tell you guys something funny. When he
2:46 first started using this app, he thought
2:49 it was just a game, like a virtual tree
2:51 that you collect like Pokemon. And I was
2:52 the one who informed him that actually
2:54 they are planting real trees. And now we
2:57 are here seeing them with our own eyes.
2:58 >> Yeah, that's nice.
3:30 It was super cool to meet all these tree
3:31 planting enthusiasts from around the
3:45 Interestingly, he actually was not the
3:47 only bug I encountered in these empty
3:49 looking dunes. There were actually a lot
3:50 of beetles crawling around. Guys, this
3:52 is the most exciting moment of this
3:54 bug's entire life. It's like, what is
3:56 that? This is the equivalent of like an
3:59 alien dropping down out of the sky. And
4:01 finally, as we approached the forest, we
4:03 started seeing other creatures. Guys, we
4:05 finally found a life form other than
4:07 beetles and a cockroach. There's a
4:10 lizard in these bushes. Look at its
4:12 little curly tail. Most of the wildlife
4:14 in these desert adjacent ecosystems
4:15 tends to be pretty small. But in some of
4:17 the other places where ant forest has
4:19 planted trees or sponsored wildlife
4:20 protection zones, you can see much
4:22 bigger animals. Whenever people think of
4:23 China, what comes to mind is giant
4:25 highrises or ancient villages or things
4:27 related to human civilization. But
4:29 there's actually a lot of nature in this
4:30 country. Wish I could see it with my own
4:31 eyes, but these creatures will not let
4:32 humans get anywhere near them.
4:34 >> Rightfully so, I suppose, because
4:35 throughout our history, humans have been
4:37 a very destructive species. But
4:38 fortunately, we are doing the very
4:39 opposite of that today. And I know
4:40 you're probably looking at this teeny
4:42 fragile thing, what is that? It's just a
4:45 little twig, right? This is what it
4:47 takes to restore a desert. You can't
4:49 just plop down some giant woody tree
4:50 here and expect it to thrive. You have
4:52 to start from these little hearty,
4:54 resilient shrubs. It's very tiny on the
4:57 surface, but it has the longest root
4:59 network you've ever dang seen. Most of
5:02 this plant is actually underground. So,
5:03 you might think you're looking at an
5:05 insignificant little shrub, but that
5:09 shrub is holding together so much soil.
5:11 That shrub has sent roots this deep just
5:14 TO FIND WATER. THAT shrub is working its
5:18 butt off to survive in this inhospitable
5:20 landscape. You can actually feel the
5:22 difference in the soil if you touch
5:25 this. It's firm like a skin over top of
5:26 the dirt instead of back there in the
5:27 dunes where the sand is blowing around
5:29 all over the place. And it's this layer
5:32 that helps to trap the soil in place and
5:34 protect it from wind or from being
5:36 washed away so that we can have a
5:38 healthy ecosystem here. The grass is way
5:39 thicker in the places where trees have
5:41 been planted. And you can also see more
5:43 bugs and small animals. This whole area
5:45 used to be a dead zone and it's so nice
5:47 to see life making a comeback. Something
5:49 I love about this forest is that the
5:52 trees are not planted in perfect rows.
5:53 They're scattered around in little
5:54 clusters here and there. It's not a
5:57 monoculture with just one species. We
5:59 have different species of tree all
6:01 coexisting, mimicking the way trees
6:03 actually grow in nature. I know humans
6:05 are very perfectionist and we love our
6:07 rose, but that's not how nature works.
6:08 Nature actually likes a little bit of
6:11 chaos because that creates a healthy
6:13 habitat with varied and diverse
6:14 environments. That's why my lawn is full
6:17 of weeds because that's nature. It is a
6:19 thriving habitat. Okay. And this is also
6:20 a thriving habitat with a bunch of
6:22 different plants all together in here.
6:25 Because planting trees isn't just about
6:27 greenifying the landscape. You want to
6:29 create a biodiverse ecosystem that will
6:32 last way longer than our own lifespans.
6:33 Worldwide, we've been losing forests at
6:35 an unsustainable rate over the past few
6:37 decades. But the good news is
6:39 deforestation trends are slowly
6:40 beginning to reverse in some places
6:42 thanks to better protection efforts and
6:55 Thank you. We won a prize.
6:58 >> Okay, Ace won the prize. Destruction
6:59 happens in the blink of an eye, but
7:01 growing it back is incredibly slow,
7:02 especially in regions threatened by
7:04 desertification. Conditions are
7:06 unforgiving out here, and the ant forest
7:07 team has to work hard to make sure the
7:09 trees survive. And today, we're going to
7:10 experience a little bit of that
7:12 firsthand. It's a tougher task than it
7:14 looks. You have to get all the loose
7:16 sand out of the way before you can even
7:18 start digging. In the big cities, it
7:19 feels like change is happening by the
7:21 second. There's always some new
7:24 technology, some AI thing. The rat race
7:25 is intense, and humans are endlessly
7:27 scrambling for limited resources. But
7:29 here, it feels like a completely
7:30 different world.
7:32 >> Life here moves slowly. I can just sit
7:34 on a sand dune and zone out and watch a
7:37 tiny bug crawl home. It takes me a long
7:38 time to collect enough green energy just
7:41 to plant one tree. And all these little
7:43 tiny trees that we just planted, it will
7:45 take years for them to grow even as tall
7:47 as my thigh. And it will take them about
7:50 a decade to grow this big. That is a
7:52 level of patience that my 5-second
7:54 attention span cannot comprehend. For
7:55 the past decade, while much of the world
7:57 has been busy keeping up with the rat
7:58 race, there's been this group of people
8:01 here in China focused on just one thing,
8:03 planting trees. Their mission is to take
8:05 this barren desert land and one tree at
8:07 a time, turn it into a home where life
8:09 can take root again. Being here, you
8:11 feel a totally different rhythm to life.
8:13 You let time run its course. The
8:15 progress might be incredibly slow, but
8:16 if you just keep at it, change does
8:18 happen. Anyway, regardless of what's
8:20 going on in the rest of the world, I
8:22 will continue to collect green energy
8:24 with Ant forest and continue to plant
8:26 these cute little trees. It is one teeny
8:28 tiny contribution that I can make to a
8:30 greener and more beautiful world. And I
