China's Gobi desert and the oasis of Crescent Lake - in pictures

A guide leading camels near the Yueyaquan Crescent Lake in Dunhuang, in China's northwestern Gansu province. Formerly a silk route hub and centre for trade between China and the West, Dunhuang relies heavily on tourism Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

A cart carrying tourists through the sand dunes, a result of increasing desertification in this area of China. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

The Crescent Lake sits in an oasis just 6km south of the city of Dunhuang in Gansu Province, China Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

A guide waiting for tourists on this former silk route hub Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Tourist guides wait to take people on camel and 4x4 rides around the lake, which has shrunk hugely in the last 50 years, but is now being refilled with the help of the Chinese government Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

The dunes around Crescent Lake, or Yueyaquan as it was called in the Qing Dynasty, reach a relative height of 250 meters Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images