![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gallagher-photo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/GALLAGHER-BEIJING-SANDSTORM-3-800x534-1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u201cWhy is the sky orange?\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled the sheets from around my eyes and looked at my daughter. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky. It\u2019s orange,\u201d she stated in a very matter-of-fact way.<\/p>\n
I rolled over and pulled the curtain to one side. I peered through my half-awake eyes out onto the streets of Beijing which were shrouded by a distinctive orange haze. It was like the city had been dipped and soaked in a cup of English tea, leaving a sepia tone to everything that it had touched.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it might be a sandstorm,\u201d I said in surprise. She stood in silence and looked puzzled.<\/p>\n
The confusion was understandable. The last time a sandstorm had descended on Beijing was well before she was born. It was the first time she, and many other children in Beijing, were waking up to the sight of orange sand-filled skies.<\/p>\n
As a photographer, I did what you might expect I did. I went out immediately into the sandstorm to begin photographing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For the past 15 years, my work has focused mainly on telling stories about the climate crisis and global environmental issues. Normally, I travel far and wide across the Asia-Pacific region to document these issues. This time, however, I was in the middle of an environmental crisis right in the city where I live.<\/p>\n
As I ventured out into the sandstorm to begin making pictures, I began to reflect on the last time I had photographed a sandstorm in China. In 2009, I embarked on a six-week overland journey traveling from Beijing to the far west of the country to document the problems China was facing due to increasing desertification.<\/p>\n
Desertification is the conversion of arable and habitable regions into either deserts or arid land. It\u2019s caused by a myriad of factors including climate change, inappropriate agricultural practices, and water mismanagement. It often results in the creation of more dry and degraded land which is prime territory for the creation of sandstorms. During this journey, I photographed many sandstorms as I made my way through some of the country\u2019s worst-hit regions.<\/p>\n
Over a quarter of China\u2019s northern and western regions are covered with desert and\/or arid land, so sandstorms have long been a problem in the north of the country. While they continue to plague those remote regions of China, Beijing has suffered fewer in the past decade, largely due to aggressive reforestation efforts near the capital. This month\u2019s sandstorm, however, was a clear reminder that sandstorms are still a threat to this region.<\/p>\n