In Doilungdeqen District of Lhasa, more than 90 villagers of the Donggar community gathered on Xiga Mountain Tuesday to earth up saplings. They planned to plant about 2,000 saplings on this day.

Xiga Mountain, which once was barren with rocks, has transformed its appearance since a proposal by Rigzin, a group leader of the Donggar community, in 2013 to utilize part of the collective income for tree-planting. From the year of 2013 to 2020, a total of 28.54 million yuan (about 3.97 million U.S. dollars) was invested, greening 800 mu (about 53.33 hectares) of the mountain land.

Thanks to related policies rolled out by local government, villagers of the group planted an area of 1,200 mu (about 80 hectares) with trees in 2021.

In 2022, Rigzin's group was granted a loan of 24 million yuan (about 3.34 million U.S. dollars) to join a greening project, the undertaking of ecological construction and restoration in Lhasa including Xiga Mountain. Since then, another 2,242 mu (about 149.47 hectares) of mountain land have been afforested.

Over the past 11 years, 4,242 mu (about 282.8 hectares) of once-barren land have turned into lush green.

"I expect the saplings all over the mountain to thrive, and it is my dream to let future generations have a verdant mountain," Rigzin said, who has already seen Xiga Mountain as his home.