Ecological monitoring: The project continuously monitors and regularly evaluates vegetation restoration and adjusts vegetation management measures on a timely basis based on changes in vegetation growth, soil moisture and other indicators by employing local people as seasonal workers. 

Benefit evaluation: Helping the community residents to improve their income by 2,000 yuan on average per household who adopted the new techniques, enabling farmers to directly benefit from the achievements of ecological restoration.

Environmental education: raised environmental awareness among community members and helped them better understand the balance between ecology and development through environmental education workshops.

Volunteer opportunities: the promotion of dry farming has led thousands of farmers in the surrounding communities to participate in the project, to be engaged throughout the process of trial planting, adaptation & adjustment as seen fit, and harvesting. They did not need to test out the effects in their own fields.

Skill trainings: improved the ability of the community to apply new technologies and new models to farming and herding methods. Assisted the community to set up new cooperatives.

Cooperating with Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, the project implemented "smart grassland management” on 200 hectares (3000 mu) of grassland in Helinge’er county, in combination with vegetation growth monitoring and use of meteorological data to determine the right time to start spring grazing. Herder were able to dynamically determine grazing time and intensity, as well as tailor the grazing plan with balanced grass and livestock. After 3 years of pilot work, the project has spearheaded the model of "grazing in warm seasons and feeding in cold seasons", suitable for the local area and other sites with similar conditions in the grassland of northern China.

The project helped the local farmers cope better with the accelerating water shortage, exacerbated by a changing climate. The farmers were embracing, the integrated technologies and practices of high-yield dry-farming, ecological dry-farming and soil testing formula fertilization, selected drought-resistant crop varieties, enhanced film mulching, and innovative irrigation to make full use natural precipitation. The approach—combining accessible data tools and new land management practices—has led to multiple benefits of water and fertilizer efficiency, and increased production and income.

In order to restore the degraded land, to increase the vegetation coverage and biodiversity, and to recover the ecosystem functions of windbreak and sand-fixation, the project employs the tertiary structure of "trees, shrubs and grass." Native species of trees, shrubs, and grass were selected for maximum ecological service function, including carbon sequestration and habitat potential. Since 2010, we have restored a priority area of 2,585 hectares of degraded land, as identified by the Helinge’er County Ecological Restoration Plan. Restoration activities included planting nearly 3 million trees that is estimated to capture more than 160,000 tons of CO2 over the next 30 years.

Aiming at gully areas with serious water and soil erosion, the project incorporated engineering and biological approaches, introduced new technologies such as a "biological blanket"(It is a high strength ecological slope protection tool made of a variety of naturally degradable materials. Biological blanket helps reduce soil erosion on the slope) and successfully restored nearly 600 hectare (9,000 mu) of soil and water loss areas in 14 gullies.

In Helinge’er County, Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) was used to plan ecological restoration and protection for the county with consideration of climate change forecast. Firstly, demands of regional ecosystem service functions were determined according to the national ecological function zoning and ecological red lines. Secondly, to ensure the key ecosystem types in each ecological function plot can perform long-lasting and reliable ecological service functions, historic and current status of each ecological function plot was evaluated with literature reviews and field investigations (community surveys), and ecosystem trends were predicted under different climate change scenarios. Community outreach was crucial in understanding how the lived experience of farmers and herders compared to the scientific literature and helped build trust with communities.

Targets of the protection area target were set, and the degree of human influence in the area was considered. Finally, for the important ecological function areas the current ecosystem status was compared to the key ecosystem types that can continue to play their roles. If they were consistent, they were identified as protected areas. Inconsistencies resulted in restoration areas, and the target ecosystem type for restoration could then be determined.