Hyundai Motor supports planting trees in Inner Mongolia desert

By Kim Young-gyo HONG KONG, July 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co. said Sunday it has started to support planting trees in China's Inner Mongolia desert as part of efforts to stop desertification in the area. The northern part of China has been plagued by desertification due to rapid deforestation, overgrazing and climate change. Dust storms that originate in the region regularly blow over South Korea and Japan, carrying pollution from China's factories and causing environmental and respiratory damage. Hyundai Motor said some 500 South Korean and Chinese volunteers, including college students and Hyundai employees, are participating in the reforestation activity sponsored by the South Korean carmaker, which runs from mid-July to mid-August. In 2008, Hyundai Motor launched its first global environment project to convert China's deserts into grassland. Under the plan, the automaker has so far turned 38 kilometers of desert in the district of Chakanor into a prairie. The area within the Kunshantag desert in Inner Mongolia is located 660 km north of Beijing. According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, China declared that more than 27 percent of its land is desert, while its grasslands have shrunk by 15,000 square kilometers annually since the early 1980s. It is reported that desertification in China results in the economic loss of at least 22.7 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) every year.