China has decided to focus its ecological construction attention on
six super-large projects involving afforestation, wildlife and
nature reserves in the coming 15 years, an official said Tuesday.
Li
Yucai, vice-director of the State Forestry Administration, told a
meeting on forestry and environmental protection that the six
projects involve protecting natural forests, building
20-million-hectare shelter belts in northwest, north and northeast
China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and
converting farmland to forest and grassland in the vast but
ecologically fragile western China.
The projects also cover sand control in areas around Beijing,
wildlife protection and construction of nature reserves and forest
industry bases.
The Chinese government has allocated over 22 billion yuan in
compensation funding for the logging ban in nature forests in the
upper reaches of the Yangtze and the upper and middle reaches of
the Yellow River, and for slashed logging quotas in nature forests
in northeast China.
In
1,108 counties in 24 provinces and autonomous regions in central
and western China, 5.3 million hectares of farmland will be
returned to forest and grassland and eight million hectares of
barren hills will be planted with trees or grass.
The six projects which will help control water and soil erosion in
an area of 36 million hectares, and the runoff of sand into the
Yangtze and Yellow rivers, the two longest in China, will be
reduced by a total of 260 million tons each year, the official
said.
Farms for fast-growing trees covering 13 million hectares will be
set up over a period of 15 years across the country to provide 130
million cubic meters annually, meeting up to 40 percent of the
country’s total demand for timber.
A
total of 7.8 million hectares of trees and grass will be planted to
control desertification in areas around Beijing, and the area of
nature reserves will be expanded to cover 16 percent of China’s
land territory.
“China is formulating policies and measures encouraging the whole
of society to contribute to these projects,” said Li.
Governments at all levels will be the biggest investors in the
afforestation projects that have high ecological value for the
general public, he said.
For commercial forests, the role of the market will be brought into
full play with appropriate government support.
(Xinhua News
Agency 09/05/2001)