Accompanied by his donkey, a boy looks into the distance of his homeland.

Wearing a loose gown and traditional Mongolian boots, a shepherd herds his sheep on a horseback in the vast land of Inner Mongolia, a sparse wake of Mongolian yurts scattered behind him.  

This is the typical picture conjured by most Chinese when thinking of Inner Mongolia. Today, this is actually a minority portion of the autonomous region of China.

Tamusubulage in the west, which means "spring of richness" in Mongolian, is just such a place. With plants thinly distributed and ubiquitous camel skeletons bared in the light brown sand, the views here betray the fecund connotation of its name.  

Lying east to the Badanjilin Desert, Tamusubalage has been tortured by frequent sand storms over the past decade, and its lush pastures eaten away by overabundant herds.  

Alerted to the deteriorating ecological environment, the government launched a “Restoring Grassland” campaign in 2006, urging locals to quit herding and move to the neighboring town of Alatengaobao in the south. Since then, thousands of Mongolians have given up their homes and nomadic lifestyles, settled down in a new land, and begun cultivating crops like farmers elsewhere all over China.