Environmental protection in the Helan Mountain area, Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, has yielded fruitful results in recent years.

The mountain is at the junction of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Ningxia. It extends about 280 kilometers from north to south, and 20 to 40 km from west to east, playing an important role in water source conservation in Northwest China.

However, the mountain's environment was greatly damaged by excessive exploitation of coal and silica since the 1950s.

In 2017, a slew of well-targeted measures were kicked off by the local government, with an aim to restore the green landscape on the "abandoned mines". The measures also emphasized strengthening the sound ecological system and maintaining ecological balance in the area.

Major tasks included restoring 45 seriously damaged sites on the mountain, and enrolling 11 tourism, agricultural, forestry and animal husbandry facilities into the overall plan of natural reserves.

In 2019, Ningxia released a plan to eliminate ecological problems and build a long-term protection mechanism for the mountain in three years.

Now, Helan Mountain is regaining its vitality, both in natural environment and biodiversity, thanks to the effective measures.

Zhou Jiaxin contributed to this story.

[Video provided to chinadaily.com.cn]