Zhou Yongkang, secretary of Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, said today that his province and its neighbors in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River plan to build an "ecological screen" to hold in check environmental deterioration in the vast area.

Interviewed by Chinese and foreign reporters during the on- going session of 9th National People's Congress (NPC), Zhou said that the strategy of developing west China in a big way calls for an urgent task to build an ecological screen.

Many tributaries of the Yangtze are in west China with an area of more than 1 million square km. Rampant tree felling in the past decades has seriously damaged the environment in the region. Every year about 600 million tons of sand are washed into the Yangtze, resulting in frequent floods and climatic changes.

He said that the ecological screen will ensure a 30 percent forest coverage in the upper reachs of the Yangtze. A number of big reservoirs are to be built to control floods and silts and to regulate climate, adding that more than 100 counties suffering from soil erosion and major sources of pollution will be dealt with in the coming five years.

About 100 scientists from the Ministry of Science and Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences as well as Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou and Qinghai have jointly completed a research program titled "Environment Changes, Ecological Reconstruction and Sustained Development in the Upper Reaches of the Yangtze River."