From afforestation to greening export

BEIJING, Sept. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on China's forestry:

From afforestation to greening export
https://youtu.be/8z8R1TPGdpg

Afforestation has been a Chinese tradition since ancient times. Some 2,300 years ago, governments then established special positions to take charge of the state's forests. Emperor Yang Guang of Sui Dynasty even issued a decree, stipulating "Each one who plants a willow tree would be awarded a piece of fine silk if the tree survives."

In 1949, the Chinese government launched the initiative of "protecting forests and developing forestry in a planned way", marking the first step of the PRC in ecological conservation. For a time, forest planting became a national campaign.

Since 1978, China has adopted sustainable development as a national strategy while vigorously developing the economy, and for the first time, environmental protection was written into the Constitution.

The expansion in China's forest area over the past 40 years, if divided by its 1.3 billion population, is about one-fifteenth of a hectare per person. In 2017, the total forest area reached 208 million hectares, covering nearly 22% of the country's land area. Of this amount one third, or 69.3 million hectares, are planted forests, making up over half of the total planted forests in the world.

The straw checkerboard technology has been widely used in China to fix sand dunes. In the early 1990s, China's desertified areas expanded at a rate of 2,000 square kilometers per year, encroaching on human habitat. But now they are shrinking annually at a same rate, with desert gradually turning green. It's a historic transformation.

China's investment in environmental pollution control has grown rapidly, totaling almost 1 trillion yuan a year at the moment. Obviously initial progress has been made in tackling air pollution, and environmental quality improves steadily. The green space per capita now reaches 13.7 square meters. The rural living environments have also been improving. By 2016, about 80 percent of the rural households had access to sanitary toilets, up by 35.5 percentage points from the beginning of this century.

The public awareness about environmental protection is also increasing, and their behaviors and habits are changing. In July 2019, Shanghai took the lead in fully implementing waste sorting. Major cities across the country are following suit. Today, China is the world's biggest consumer of new and renewable energies. Its investment in clean energy has ranked first in the world for many years.

China's green technology is also benefiting other countries through various overseas cooperative projects. For instance, Sri Lanka's Colombo International Container Terminals has converted its diesel-operated rubber-tyred gantry cranes to electric. In Punjab solar power station of Pakistan, crops thrive under solar panels.

China Mosaic
http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm

From afforestation to greening export
http://www.china.org.cn/video/2019-09/28/content_75256160.htm

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