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 | Wednesday, April 12, 2000, updated at 10:26(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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Forestry Officials Offer New Ways to Green China's WestForestry authorities plan to popularize 100 ways of replanting western China to preserve its trees and grasses as the nation develops the largely barren and infertile region.To perfect its reforestation methods, the State Forestry Administration will use new science, such as dune fortification and different ways of configuring trees and grasses. Many trees and grasses now planted are likely to die early because of severe drought, desertification and the shortage of species suitable for the region's semi-arid climate, Forestry Administration experts said in their latest reports. Western China is home to more than 20 per cent of the country's 1.2 billion-plus people. They live on 5.4 million square kilometers of land that is sometimes infertile and without water. The west includes upper reaches of the Yangtze River, upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River and the sandy, windy northwest. The plant stabilization methods being popularized will dovetail with regional climates and geography. Some afforestation methods apply to more than one part of the west. Afforestation in particular would put grass or trees on previously farmed slopes and close hillsides to grazing and firewood gathering. (Grain would also be offered to farmers, who would be expected to help in reforestation work.) The controlled sand can be used for farming and grazing, the administration experts say. Administration officials say the new techniques can increase tree survival by 20 per cent and grass survival 30 per cent. Growth rates would be up 15 per cent.
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