 |
Coast Shelter Forest Expanding in Southwest China
More than 98 percent of the coastline in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have been afforested, forming a strong shield against typhoons.
Coast Shelter Forest Project is one of the 10 major ecological construction projects in China. Since Guangxi started this project in 1987, its acreage of the shelter forest has grown by 25,000 hectares annually with 1,230 kilometer-long coast line greened.
Officials with Guangxi's forest bureau attributed the rapid expansion of shelter forest mainly to local governments' enhanced efforts, scientific afforestation and active participation on the part of local farmers and fishermen.
"It is very difficult to plant trees along the coast, as the coastal land are mainly made up of sandy soil," an official said, adding that various measures have been applied, including the use of ABT tree-root growing powder and putting fertilizer in tree holes, which proved to be effective.
Local Statistics indicate that from 1987 to 1999, Guangxi spent 630 million yuan in coastal afforestation, of the total, more than 26 million yuan were from local farmers and fishermen.
To improve the effectiveness of the coast shelter forest, Guangxi will start the second stage of the project next year and by 2010, 200,000 hectares of land will be afforested.
In This Section
|