More than a decade ago, the Chilechuan Grassland on the outskirts of Hohhot, capital of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, was a scene of ecological decline. Overgrazing and quarrying had stripped away nearly 30,000 mu (2,000 hectares) of pasture. Approximately 80 percent lay abandoned, the thin topsoil carried off by the wind, leaving only a few drought-tolerant plants clinging on between stones.
This early autumn, the same land presented a very different picture. On Sunday, it hosted the 2025 Chilechuan Grassland Half Marathon, with hundreds of runners traversing a landscape now covered by more than 70 plant species, echoing a verse from the Northern Dynasty (386-581): "The wind bends the grass low, revealing sheep and cows."
"Even visiting experts joked it would be easier to roll in sod from somewhere else than to restore this land," recalled Wang Junfang, head of the research results transformation department at M-Grass Ecology and Environment Group, a company tasked with Chilechuan's ecological restoration.
The turnaround began under Hohhot's integrated program for the southern slopes of the Daqing Mountain in 2012, a part of China's Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program. The approach adopted was "close-to-nature" restoration, working with natural processes rather than imposing heavy artificial landscaping.
Local conditions tested that philosophy. The average 30-centimeter shallow topsoil could not retain water, sudden rains swept away seeds, and the ground was so hard that it damaged machinery. M-Grass' team began with a 1,000-mu pilot plot. The first sowing was washed away by summer floods, yet 20 days later, green shoots emerged from cracks in the rock.
"This is the strength of native plants," explained Hong Guangyu, a researcher at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Forestry Sciences. "Ecological restoration is essentially a process of matching. Researchers verify the original vegetation from historical records, then select native grass species from similar environments that can adapt to degraded soils, and use restoration engineering to help them take root again."
The M-Grass team ultimately chose local species such as sheep-grass, wild rye and lilyturf, advancing the restoration in three phases.
By 2014, the first 10,000 mu had over 80 percent vegetation cover. In 2016, the project expanded to 30,000 mu, with hay yields up twelve-fold and the return of wildlife like foxes and hares. Chilechuan has since been sustained solely by natural rainfall. Four years later, it became a national grassland park and in 2021 it welcomed 5.58 million visitors, generating 2.05 billion yuan ($285.43 million) in income.
Chilechuan's revival reflects a wider shift in China's approach to grassland management and renewal. Since the early 2000s, authorities at national and local levels have tightened grazing controls and launched large-scale ecological projects to reverse decades of degradation caused by overgrazing and climate pressures.
"This stage was like pushing a boulder uphill," said Xing Qi, M-Grass's research and development director, who has worked in grassland science for decades.
She noted that early projects often relied on a single grass species, with limited ecological benefit. "Today, we aim to mimic native plant communities, and even fertilizers are developed to support microbial health and soil dynamics."
Central to M-Grass's work is research into local flora. Over time, the company has developed a germplasm bank holding hundreds of thousands of seed and soil samples from across northern China. This emphasis on indigenous species addresses a common challenge in China's ecological projects, which is the overreliance on imported plants that require high water use and costly maintenance.
According to M-Grass, between 2022 and 2024, it invested around 10 percent of its annual revenue, about 200 million yuan each year, in research and development, successfully domesticating nearly 300 native species. Some, once dismissed as weeds, now are recommended plant species for ecological restoration in northern cities. Twenty-five plant varieties have been included in the National Forestry and Grassland Administration's recommended seeds for projects within the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program.
In recent years, the company has developed an ecological big data platform that integrates local information on climate, soil, hydrology and grassland degradation. The system enables the selection of targeted restoration technologies and optimal combinations of grass seeds, facilitating more precise and effective ecological rehabilitation.
The company's model has been applied in diverse environments, including grasslands, deserts, saline-alkali soils and abandoned mining areas, and restoring almost 33 million mu nationwide.
In March, M-Grass also launched an international division, further extending its expertise overseas to countries such as Mongolia and Saudi Arabia. The principle, Wang said, is not to export Chinese seeds, but to adapt local plant species to restore biodiversity.
"We explore first, and if it works, the experience can help restoration efforts worldwide," Wang added.
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