XINING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Qaidam Basin, China's highest basin on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has seen a decrease of more than 28,000 hectares of desertified land since 2009, local authorities said.

The region has planted 178,000 hectares of windbreaks, farmland shelterbelts and enclosing forest to curb the expansion of desert areas, according to the local forestry department.

It has also established national forest parks and wildlife and nature reserves to preserve the local environment.

The Qaidam Basin, with an average altitude of 3,000 meters, is 240,000 square kilometers in area. It has 9.5 million hectares of desertified land.

Local authorities have launched a series of anti-desertification programs to prevent and control desertification in the region in recent years.