On August 19, Alibaba founder Jack Ma visited desert regions after a six-year absence to explore the "Ant Forest" project.

Video footage shows Ma walking through the area while engaging in deep conversations with local tree-planting workers during his visit.

He emphasized that water resources represent the core challenge for sustainable development, while affirming the significant importance of Ant Forest's persistence in ecological restoration under extreme environmental conditions.

During the visit, Ma also stood beside a tree to compare his height with it.

Over the past nine years, Ant Group has cumulatively pledged donations of over 4 billion yuan through the "Ant Forest" project. Public welfare organizations and professional institutions have implemented afforestation efforts, supporting desertification control and ecological restoration across 13 provinces and regions including Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Hebei, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Xinjiang, resulting in the planting of 600 million trees. Notably, over 90% of these trees have been planted in core areas of the three major symbolic campaigns of the "Three North" project.