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China's Forestry Coverage Rate Up to 16.55 Percent

Posted on: Saturday, 16 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

China's forestry coverage rate up to 16.55 percent

SHANGHAI, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- China is now covered in 16.55 percent forest, said sources with the State Administration of Forestry (SAF) in Shanghai Municipality on Friday.

The country's forested area exceeded 7 million hectares for two years in a row, as the artificial forestry area of China has reached 47 million hectares, the top in the world, said Cao Qingyao, director of the news office of the SAF.

"Such achievements in afforestation should be attributed to six major forestry projects of China, which cover more than 97 percent of China's administrative counties," said Cao.

The six major forestry projects are working to convert land into forests, stop sandstorms, protect endangered species and produce fast-growing, high-yield and short rotation timber-forest.

So far, the six forestry projects have created a forested area of 20.01 million hectares with an investment of 94.67 billion yuan (11.45 billion US dollars).

Despite all those achievements, China's environments are still confronted with severe challenges such as serious soil erosion, an annual desertification area equivalent to the area of a medium- sized county, and increasing endangered wildlife species, said Cao.

The current forestry development strategy designed by the Chinese government is to establish a ecological security system with forestry as the main vegetation, said Cao.

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