While many countries in the world have seen a decline in forest
resources, China has increased both the area and reserves of its
forests and was listed as one of the 15 countries preserving the
most area of forests by the United Nations Environment Program.
Reserved man-made forests in China totaled 53.84 million ha., the
forest coverage rate being 18. 21 percent.
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From 1998 to 2001, the Central Government invested 42.7 billion
yuan in central and western China to protect vegetation, subsidize
local farmers and promote projects for transforming over-cultivated
farmland back to forests and pasture. In 2003, the Regulations on
Conversion of Farmlands to Forest went into official force. The
project to reforest cultivated land has been implemented in 25
provinces, autonomous regions and centrally administered
municipalities. By 2004, 13.33 million ha. of cultivated land had
been reforested throughout China. Another effective measure of
forest protection is the natural forest conservation program
started in 1998 that stipulated a nationwide end to the felling of
trees in natural forests.?
As stipulated by the Research Report on China's Sustainable
Development Strategy on Forestry, China's forest coverage rate is
expected to reach 28 percent by 2050 with an added area of 110
million ha of planted forest.
Desertification is one of the most severe environmental problems
facing China. The area of desertification, which is 2.62 million sq
km or about 27 percent of China's land territory, far exceeds the
nation's total farmland. Today, although desertification has been
curbed in some areas, it still is expanding at a rate of more than
3,000 sq km every year.?
The State Forestry Administration has implemented a nationwide sand
control program, which has three phases: the first phase aims to
get basic control of desertification by 2010; the second phase aims
then to reduce the area of desertification every year until 2030;
and the third phase aims to raise the nation's forest cover and
bring all desertification sources under effective control by the
year 2050.