Desert/Desertification’s integrated governance: dialectical relationship and legislative notion

Desert/Desertification have both harmful and beneficial functions or roles. The relations among desert/desertification’s prevention, protection, harnessing and utilization in the integrated governance should be dialectically dealt with. By applying the theory of contradiction, the legislative notion on desert/desertification should be the following holistic view: prioritizing desertification prevention and control for desertification neutrality, protecting important (native) deserts (ecosystems) where necessary, focusing on eliminating deserts that are suitable for harnessing as grasslands, forests and/or cultivated land, and encouraging the sustainable utilization of desert resources without causing or exacerbating desertification. Due to following the unscientific notion of universal protection of deserts, the desert/desertification relating provisions in the Ecological Environment Code (Draft) have structural defects. The provisions on desert/desertification in the Code (Draft) should be structurally revised in the following three aspects based on the above holistic legislative notion: highlighting desertification’s prevention and desert’s harnessing, deleting the provisions on universal protection of deserts (ecosystems), and encouraging utilization of natural resources on desert land not included in the nature reserve system and not suitable for harnessing without causing or aggravating desertification.