The decrease in groundwater levels has caused the grasslands to retreat and many herders say that the number of sheep they can raise is diminishing fast. Wushen Township, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
For ten years, the Chinese state-run organisation Shenhua Group, has been exploiting water resources at a shocking scale from the Ordos grasslands to use in its coal-to-liquid project (a process for producing liquid fuel from coal) and illegally dumping toxic industrial waste water. Shenhua's operations have sparked social unrest and caused severe ecological damage including desertification, impacting farmers and herders who are facing reduced water supplies in what was once an abundant farming area.