For the last 20 years, Shanghai native Yi Jiefang has been helping to plant trees in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Her efforts are in aid of reforestation, as well as to keep the memory of her dead son alive — in 2000, he was killed in a traffic accident in Japan, where they lived at the time. Two years later, Yi returned to China to fulfill her son’s last wish.

Since 2002, Yi has accompanied over 50,000 volunteers from around the world to plant over 10 million cottonwood trees, pine trees, saxaul trees, and Russian olive trees across regions bordering the Gobi Desert. The total area that has been reforested measures 40,000 mu, or the equivalent of 63,495 standard basketball courts.

Translators: Zhou Zhijian and Lü Xiao