Winds howl across the Hunshandake Sandy Land, 180 km north of Beijing. Two decades ago, they fueled dust storms across northern China. Today, they raise waves of green grass. The wind has not changed; the land has.

Representatives from the secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, or UNCCD, and from related organizations in India, Peru, Kenya and Chad recently visited the site in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to study a creative method combining willow barriers with mixed seeding.

The innovation is based on local climate, soil and a unique bio-ecosystem. People use branches of a native willow shrub, Salix gordejevii, to form sand barriers that effectively slow the movement of sand. Native grasses sown during the rainy season grow and spread in the grids. Together, the shrubs and grasses foster a layered plant community that stabilizes the sand land and revives vegetation.

Officials described the method as inexpensive and sustainable. The shrubs can be periodically cut and used as livestock fodder. After a five-year grazing ban, the restored grassland can be put into controlled use.

But planting was only the visible part of the story. The UN experts and foreign guests wonder what came afterward.

They have a long list of questions: How much does the project cost? Could herders take part? Who preserves the restored land? Is the program sustainable during harsh years, when rain is rare and locals still keep livestock farming?

All questions point to a main one: On this land, how to make pasture restoration sustainable and ensure people's livelihoods at the same time?

The following story tells how such a balance has been struck in practice.

At herder Hasibateer's family ranch, cattle breeding, fodder cultivation and grassland conservation formed a synergistic system, enabling enhanced profitablity with the improvement of the herd's health, yet without expanding the herd population. Locally produced fodder alleviated pressure on natural pastures, creating a sustainable cycle of ecological and economic benefits.

At the Maodeng demonstration ranch, this same approach was scaled up to restore degraded pastures through a multi-pronged strategy: implementing grazing bans, conducting reseeding initiatives, applying targeted fertilization, root cutting and adopting rotational mowing practices. These measures collectively rehabilitated the ecosystem while increasing productivity.

Additionally, the ranch established a comprehensive fodder production and storage system, creating a critical buffer against droughts, snowstorms and other extreme weather events.

For visitors from pastoral communities in countries such as Chad, the dilemma was familiar. Livestock provide food, income and cultural identity. But when the land deteriorates, the communities that depend most directly on it are often the first to suffer.

Hindou Ibrahim, president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, said Inner Mongolia's experience was particularly relevant to the Sahel, the semi-arid belt including her home country.

"What we have seen in Inner Mongolia is a powerful reminder that restoring nature and improving livelihoods are not competing goals," she said. "They are deeply interconnected."

The question, she suggested, is not only what is restored, but who has a hand in restoring it.

"One of the most important lessons is that restoration succeeds when local communities are at the center," Ibrahim said. "By combining traditional knowledge with science, investing in nature-based solutions, and creating sustainable sources of income, restoration becomes both environmentally effective and economically viable."

Across Xilingol League, a sub-provincial administrative division of Inner Mongolia, such a connection between land and livelihood took different forms. Herders and local businesses are building a broader economy around pastoral resources: mare's milk is processed into higher-value products, horse-based tourism offers riding experiences and homestays rooted in pastoral culture, and a dairy-processing industry park pools raw milk from surrounding households, connecting small producers with wider markets.

For Ricky Kej, the goodwill ambassador for UNCCD, the most striking feature of the program was the combination of government policy and individual responsibility.

"In Inner Mongolia, I realize that there is a top-down approach through policy, legislation and government activity," he said. "At the same time, there's also a ground-up approach from people."

The herders he met, Kej said, spoke not only about feeding their livestock, but also about preserving the grassland for future generations.

"Taking care of livestock and rangeland can go hand in hand," he said, "as we see it very clearly with the people of Inner Mongolia."

No single restoration model can be universally replicated across countries, as ecological and socio-cultural contexts differ. However, what works widely is a broader principle: degraded land is more likely to recover when restoration is adapted to local conditions, shaped by local communities and tied to local people's livelihoods.

The visitors came from different lands. In Hunshandake, they found common ground.