The Three-North Shelter Forest Program, built to improve the ecological environment in northwestern, northeastern and northern China, has saw an average of 10 million mu, or 666,000 hectares, of trees planted each year over the past five years, The Paper.cn reported on Jan 4.

The government has pledged to raise total coverage of shelter forest to 14 percent during the 2016-2020 period, and to 15 percent during the 2020-2035 period, said Zhang Jianlong, head of the State Forestry Administration, at a meeting held on Thursday.

By 2050, a national network of shelter forest will be constructed, Zhang disclosed. From 2012 to 2016, about 50.28 million mu, or 3.35 million hectares, of forest were built under the project, according to statistics.

The shelter forest project has combated nearly 60,000 square kilometers of desertified land over the past five years, and now it reduces 1,297 square kilometers of desertified land per year.

About 15 million farmers have shaken off poverty by planting fruit trees and other economic trees.