The Ginkgo Foundation and China's tourist information-sharing website Mafengwo have launched a joint campaign to continue efforts to save an area of previously fertile land in Minqin county of Northwest China's Gansu province, which continues to be threatened by desertification.

The two have launched Arbor Day on Mafengwo, an initiative calling on the public to either donate money or participate in tree planting in Minqin, which is described by local officials as an "ecological disaster area".

Desertification is a term used for land degradation in which relatively dry regions become increasingly arid, typically losing their main bodies of water, as well as vegetation and wildlife.