Saving China’s ecology

By strengthening ecological development, China will become a country with sound ecology and environment in 2020.

According to the latest results of the Eighth National Forestry Inventory, in China, the forest area is 208 million hectares, and the forest coverage is 21.63 per cent. The forest area and forest stock volume ranks the fifth and sixth in the world respectively, the area of plantation remains the first.

Ecological development is a long-term and arduous task. The Chinese government has clearly put forward a strategy of fully carrying forward with a scientific outlook of development and achieving harmonious advancement of human beings and nature. It has set ‘building an ecological society’ and ‘a country with sound ecology and environment’ as important goals in building a well-off society in a holistic way.

For developing countries, building an ecological society requires the acceleration of the development of modern forestry and the establishment of a sound forestry ecological system, well-developed forestry industry and a prosperous ecological cultural system, through the strengthening of ecological development and natural conservation and improvement of the land. In China, several efforts have been made to implement such key ecological programmes such as the Natural Forest Protection Programme, the Land Conversion Programme, the Sandification Control Programme for Areas in the Vicinity of Beijing and Tianjin, the ‘Three North’ and the Yangtze Shelterbelt Development Programme, the Program to Combat Desertification and Land Degradation in Rocky Regions, Soil & Water, Grassland, Wetland Conservation Programme and Coastal Shelterbelt Development Program. These are aimed at promoting the natural rehabilitation and artificial rehabilitation of forest, wetland and grassland ecosystems. Meanwhile, measures were taken to enhance forest management and protection and improve the quality of forest. Efforts have also been made to enhance the prevention and control of forest fires, exotic forest species and illegal confiscation of forest lands, proactively promote the forest health, strictly regulate forest land utilisation and forest logging, and sternly safeguard the ‘red line’ of a total forest area of 310 million hectares.

By strengthening ecological development and natural conservation, China will become a country with sound ecology and environment in 2020. The national forest cover has reached 20 per cent in 2010 and will climb to 23 per cent by 2020 and will eventually reach and maintain 26 per cent by 2050. By 2020, the number of wetland nature reserves will reach 600 square kilometres, wetlands of international importance will reach about 80 square kilometres and over 60 per cent of natural wetlands will be effectively protected, so as to establish a comparatively complete wetland conservation and management system.

In order to achieve the goal of ‘double increase’ in forestry by 2020, to ensure the forest coverage of over 23 per cent and to maintain the territorial ecological security, China will oversee various reforms in forestry in a comprehensive manner, further advance forestation and greening, implement the measures of forest resources protection and management in a more strict way, push forward the scientific forest management, develop ecological forestry and forestry for livelihood, try its best to improve the volume, quality and functions of forests with other countries, lead China’s forestry onto a path of sustainable development, benefit Asia and the world at large.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2014.

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