Photos by iantehphotography / I’ve traveled to northern China to document landscapes along the Yellow River for close to a decade. On one trip, I explored the expanding deserts in Inner Mongolia. This young sapling was recently planted in the Kubuqi Desert Park, which boasts a 5-star hotel, lakes, a golf course, and camel riding and off-road karting activities. The Kubuqi Desert is the seventh largest desert in China. It was one of the three primary sources for sandstorms that would engulf the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei areas. Today its ochre sands are a scattered scene of greenery, home to around 100 species of plants and wild animals, from a tree-planting program driven by a local self-made industrial billionaire, Wang Wenbiao. Nearly 20 percent of China is desert, and drought across the northern region is getting worse (third image). One recent estimate said China has 21,000 square miles (55,000 sq km) more desert than what existed in 1975. As the Tengger Desert expands, it's mer...