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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 24, 2002

Roundup: China Steps up Fight Against Sandstorms

The Chinese government has invested 60 billion yuan (7.22 billion US dollars) in prevention of sandstorms, which often hit northwest China, one of areas under the most rampant harassment of sand and dust in the world.


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The Chinese government has invested 60 billion yuan (7.22 billion US dollars) in prevention of sandstorms, which often hit northwest China, one of the world's areas under the worst harassment of sand and dust.

This was announced by Xie Zhenhua, head of China's Environmental Protection Bureau, at an environment ministerial meeting between China, Japan and the Republic of Korea on April 21.

Key forestry projects
Since the 1970s, China has launched 17 massive forestry projects. Of those, the State Council concentrated on six major ones in 2001 with four directly related to sandstorms.

A 73-year long project kicked off in 1978, will green 534 million Mu (35.6 million hectares) of land in northeast, northwest and north China's 13 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

In 1998 the State Council launched a national ecological program and a project to protect natural forests began on three levels: a full-scale logging ban in the upper reaches of the Yangtse River and the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, slashing woodland logging quotas in northeast China, Inner Mongolia and other areas, and pinning down local governments' responsibility to protect specific natural forests.

A project to convert farmland to forest and grassland is expected to cut sand levels in the Yangtse and Yellow rivers by 260 million tons annually up to the year 2010.

Projects also cover sand control in areas around Beijing, aiming to increase the areas' afforestation rate to 21.4 percent.

From 2000 to 2001, China had allocated 1.68 billion yuan (195 million U.S. dollars) out of money collected with state bonds to modify 102,000 square kilometers of sandy areas around the capital.

Meteorological technology
Besides the key forestry projects, China's meteorological technology has advanced greatly, arming scientists better to study and cure sandstorms.

In the past 30 years, the country has launched three polar orbit satellites and two stationary satellites, making it the third country in the world with both types of satellites after the United States and Russia.

China began to monitor sandstorms through satellites and remote sensing technology in 1993 to give a warning 48 hours before gales and sandstorms set.

Analysis: Nature Continues to Kick up a Storm
In recent years, it seems that sand storms are affecting Chinese people's lives more frequently and extensively. As this spring draws near, more sand storms are expected. Among the many Chinese scholars probing the reasons and controlling measures of the sand storms, Wang Shejiao, of the Northwest Historical Environment and Economic Social Development Research Centre under the Shaanxi Normal University, has put forward a rather unique view. (In Detail)




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