Land Loss Calls for Protection

China has lost nearly one million hectares of cropland last year, mostly to construction and plantation, a Sunday press release by the Ministry of Land and Resources revealed.

China has 128.2 million hectares of cultivated land, about 13.4 percent of its total territory. There are 0.1 hectares of cultivated land per capita, which is less that half the world's average, China Daily reported Monday.

In its recently-issued work program for the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), the ministry vowed to stop the loss of the country's cultivated land, the newspaper said.

According to its plan, the total amount of cultivated land should be no less than 128 million hectares by the end of 2005 and the ministry will take measures to protect cropland from human activities, such as construction, and natural forces, such as flooding and erosion.

The ministry has established protection zones for cultivated land and submitted land utilization plans for the country's 66 large cities and it will continue to supervise the protection of cropland and ensure no more land is unnecessarily used for construction, China Daily said.

Another aim of the ministry is to improve the environmental protection around mines.

"All mines should take effective measures to recycle waste, retain soil, clean water, and return as much land as possible to agricultural use," China Daily quoted the ministry's plan as saying.

Mine environments have greatly improved over the past five years, with some 97.8 percent of all the mines in China were operating under the supervision of the ministry.

The ministry has stipulated that mines will not have their licences renewed if they fail to meet environmental requirements.

The ministry's plans also seek to enhance mechanisms to prevent geological disasters, investigate the utilization of underground water, develop 50 national geological parks, improve the marine environment, and build a comprehensive marine monitoring system, China Daily reported.






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