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China, Netherlands Join Hands to Protect Mangroves
A mangrove forest protection program, co-sponsored by the governments of China and the Netherlands, was launched Monday in Zhanjiang City in coastal Guangdong Province in south China.
Guangdong has a total of 14,700 ha of mangrove forest, accounting for over half of the country's total. Among the ten mangrove nature reserves in the province, the Zhanjiang State- Level Mangrove Nature Reserve, with over 80 percent of the province's mangrove bushes, has some 25 species of such special trees, which usually grow in swampy areas in the torrid and subtropical zones.
With a total investment of some four million U.S. dollars, the program will carry out mangrove resource investigations, build a mangrove protection zone, hold personnel training courses and spread environmental protection education in the Leizhou Peninsula over the coming five years.
A large area of China's mangrove plantations has disappeared over the past few years because of human activity, which has aroused great concern of the Chinese government.
China is building more protection areas in the coastal regions where mangroves grow, strengthening reforestation drives and enforcing laws and regulations to bring mangrove resources under legal protection.
The country is also actively supporting international biosphere protection programs. Statistics show that China's annual appropriation for this purpose runs to over 50 billion yuan (about 6 billion U.S. dollars).
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