Afforestation Campaign
In China, afforestation plays a fundamental role in building ecological civilization and safeguarding ecological security. It also lays a foundation for building a beautiful China and implementing the rural vitalization strategy. According to General Secretary Xi Jinping’s report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China will promote afforestation, take comprehensive steps to control desertification, stony deserts and soil erosion, strengthen wetland conservation and restoration and better prevent and control geological disasters. China will improve its system for protecting natural forests and transform more marginal farmland into forests and grasslands. China will rigorously protect farmland and expand trials in crop rotation and keeping land fallow. China will improve systems for regeneration of croplands, grasslands, forests, rivers, and lakes, and set up diversified market-based mechanisms for ecological compensation.
Statistics from China’s State Forestry Administration shows that the country planted 29.83 million hectares of trees over the past five years, and the growth of its forest resources was faster and greater than that of any other country during the same period. China’s forest coverage has risen to 21.66 percent.
Next, China will launch a large-scale afforestation campaign. The country aims to expand more than 100 million mu (each mu is equivalent to 0.067 hectares) of forests in 2018, including a 50-million- mu manmade forest, while tending 120 million mu of existing forest. By 2020, China’s woody plant coverage will exceed 29 percent and its forest stock will rise to 16.5 billion cubic meters. China aims to increase its forest coverage to 23.04 percent by 2020 and 26 percent by 2035, and this number is expected to reach the world average by the middle of this century.