A women's militia company in Yulin, Shaanxi province, has been fighting against desertification for 37 years, something that has been praised highly by UN environmental experts.

In April 1974, the militia company with 54 women who were aged 17 and 18 went to the southern edge of the Ordos Desert and started to plant trees in a bid to control the expansion of the sand.

From then on, even though the members of the militia company have changed, its effort to control the desert had continued.

After the group's hard efforts of the past 37 years, the company controlled 947 hectares of desert and planted trees to form a number of barriers to encroachment by sand.

(Huashang Daily)