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China's Forest Coverage Reached 16.55 Percent
China's forest coverage rate has reached 16.55 percent thanks to the nationwide afforestation efforts to improve the ecological environment, according to an expert report delivered in Xi'an Sunday.
The report was made by Jiang Zehui, president of the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences at today's opening ceremony of the annual meeting of the China Association of Science and Technology.
"Since the beginning of the 1990s, China has greatly enhanced its tree-planting efforts, especially in the 10 major ecological improvement projects including the construction of the famous Three-North (northwest, north and northeast) green shelter belt system, which is believed to be the world's largest ecological effort," she said.
In the past 10 years China also made significant improvements in nature conservation.
"We have made notable progress in the protection of wetlands, wild animals and bio-diversity, while achieving some good results in combating desertification," Jiang said.
She said forests are playing an increasingly important role especially in the country's ecologically weak western regions.
A total of 45 million hectares of trees have been planted in China over the past few decades, making it the world's No. 1 planter of trees.
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