China plans to return about 820,000 hectares of farmlands to forests and grasslands in 2017, according to the State Forestry Bureau on July 24.

The figure will increase the total coverage of farmlands returned to forests and grasslands to 5.3 million hectares since 2014, when the country carried a new round of land reclamation work, aiming to return almost 2.83 million hectares of farmlands to forests and grasslands by 2020.

In May 2017, the State Council approved a project to return about 2.5 million hectares of farmlands to forests and grasslands in 18 provincial regions and in parts of southwest China's Yunnan province.