Initially by 2025, 36,000 square kilometers of new forest are to be planted, said the deputy chairman of the State Forestry and Greenland Commission, Li Chunliang, on Friday. According to the five-year plan, the area covered with trees should increase to 24.1 percent of the total area of China by then. At the end of last year it was 23 percent.
The state planners warn that the forest and grass areas of the People’s Republic are inadequate – especially in the drought-endangered regions in the north and west. Li did not say what kind of trees to plant. However, documents say that the strategy is partly based on “natural afforestation”. This would mean that different tree species would be used according to the local environment. “By 2035, the quality and stability of the national forest, grassland, wetland and desert ecosystems will be vastly improved,” Li said.
For decades, China has accepted the destruction of important ecosystems in favor of economic growth. The government of the world’s second largest economy after the USA has since promised to erect “ecological safety barriers” and to protect up to a quarter of its entire territory from human interference. To this end, China plans to expand its system of national parks over the next five years. Corridors are also to be created to curb the fragmentation of living spaces. The illegal trade in wildlife should continue to be combated, said Chen Jiawen, who is responsible for drawing up the new plan.
Regardless, the market research group Comparethemarket.com predicted that the capital Beijing alone would have to plant more than 15 million trees a year to offset annual emissions. Singapore and Hong Kong would each have to plant more than nine million trees a year, London a little more than four million.
