The Taklimakan Desert, the Sea of ??Death, has now become a desert oasis. How can it not be considered a good place for an outing?

As for the Taklimakan Desert Highway, many people who have been to Xinjiang for tourism or travel must have visited it. Through unremitting human efforts, today's Taklimakan Desert has indeed undergone relatively large changes. For tourists, it has indeed turned into a desert oasis. However, it still cannot escape the fate of being the largest desert in China and the second largest mobile desert in the world. Not a good place for an outing. Why is this? I boil it down to the following three main reasons:

1. The general environment has not yet formed a space suitable for human survival. Two sets of data are used to illustrate this issue. Xinjiang is 1.66 million square kilometers, accounting for one-sixth of the country, while the Taklimakan Desert is 320,000 square kilometers, accounting for one-fifth of Xinjiang’s total area. The Taklimakan Desert Greening Project has a planned area of ??698 square kilometers, accounting for 0.22% of the total desert area, and will not be completed until 2020. What people currently call a desert oasis is actually a road protection forest planted along both sides of the desert highway, 436 kilometers long and 72 to 78 meters wide.

It is rare to see households in the Taklimakan Desert. On both sides of the desert road, there is a house and a well every 5 kilometers, a total of 108 households. This is a forest ranger's paradise, where a young couple lives, lives and works. Their job is very simple, which is to protect the forest and water the trees regularly. Although there is some greening in the Taklimakan Desert, its proportion is really negligible. At present, it cannot change the overall environmental outlook at all. Bad weather, with winds and sand blowing everywhere, and flying sand and rocks, occurs from time to time, which is very unsuitable for human survival.

2. The microclimate has not yet met the requirements for adapting to human life. On July 13, 2018, my family and I went on a road trip to the Taklimakan Desert. We saw that the green belt here was basically Haloxylon ammodendron, multi-branched willow, and four-winged atriplex. This type of vegetation has strong drought resistance and is suitable for arid desert environments with little rain. However, most of them are needle-leaf and very sharp, which can hurt the human body if not careful. In addition, the desert is still a desert, the sand is still exposed, and it is difficult to see grass and flowers on the ground. No birds are heard, no flowers are smelled. People are just passing by for sightseeing and cannot stay here.

3. Material conditions have not yet satisfied people’s spiritual pursuits. The oasis in the Taklimakan Desert is green for roads, benefiting mankind and creating a miracle in the world. At present, there is no flat land, no patches of annual or perennial herbaceous plants, no leisure and entertainment facilities, no green lawns, no blooming flowers, and no available drinking water, which cannot meet people's survival needs.

In short, the Taklimakan Desert is currently only green with shrubs and no green grass. It is indeed a good tourist attraction, but it is not a good place for outing.

The above pictures are all taken by the author himself. If you have other opinions about the pictures and texts, please pay attention and leave a message to exchange.