Commentary: Innovative greening manifests China's environmental preservation drive

BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Planting trees around Qingming Festival in early April has been a tradition for centuries among Chinese people. The nation's innovative approach to afforestation manifests its environmental preservation drive.

China's annual National Tree-Planting Day started from 1979. Over the past decades, China's greening endeavors have been both fruitful and visible, with barren mountains being transformed into lush ones, and deserts into oases.

Since 2000, China has led the world in greening the planet, contributing around one fourth of the world's newly added green areas. From 2012 to 2021, China planted 64 million hectares of trees, with its forest coverage ratio increasing to 24 percent. China is the country with the highest growth in forest resources and the largest area of man-made forest worldwide.

Behind the notable ecological progress is China's approach to environmental preservation. This year's International Day of Forests on March 21, was themed "Forests and Innovation: New Solutions for a Better World." To build a beautiful world, it may be inspiring to delve into China's methods and practices in preserving forests.

Innovative policy systems play a key role. To create an eco-environmental conservation system, China has strengthened the rule of law, tightened supervision and management, and improved market-based mechanisms. Meanwhile, the country has accelerated the building of a green, circular, and low-carbon economy.

In a new mechanism, the country has had nearly 1.2 million forest chiefs at the provincial, prefectural, county, township and village levels. These individuals are tasked with leading forest and grassland resource protection work in designated areas. Meanwhile, China is developing a protected area system with national parks as the mainstay, supported by nature reserves and supplemented by nature parks. It has created its first batch of five national parks.

Practices of sustainable preservation have also been explored. In state-owned key forest areas in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, where a commercial logging ban was imposed a decade ago, the development of forest products such as fungi and medicinal herbs, as well as tourism, has increased the incomes of forest workers. Last year, China saw 2.5 billion eco-tourism trips.

China's green development has helped to expand the greening areas of its own land and the earth. China's approach to green development provides inspiration for global development, especially under the context of climate change.