Beijing has planted 58 million trees on 40,000 hectares and its tree coverage has amounted to 45.5 percent, 1.5 percent higher than last year, hitting an all-time high.

This was disclosed at a recent conference in Beijing to award prizes to outstanding units and individuals in afforestation. The conference has also set forth the afforeatation targets for this year.

The city has completed its ten key greening projects and built three ecological green belts. Five systems of green industry comprising the breeding of fruit and tree saplings, fast-growing forests of trees, forest tourism and flower cultivation have take shape. The city has also built a system to protect the forest resources.

The city will green the area neighboring with its outskirts, launch its second green belt, improve the greenery on the third ring road and 10 other roads and in five river valleys. The farmland on the hill slopes in the outskirts will be returned to forested or grass land and grass seeds will be sown by airplanes in the sandy areas.

Efforts will be made to still improve the scenes at the scenic spots and the greenery in small towns and control the sandstorm sources in the Beijing-Tianjin area. It will plant trees on 36,000 hectares and raise the forest coverage by two percentage points. 500 hectares of green land will be added to the urban area with the per-capita green land reaching two square meters. By 2008, Beijing will be nestling in green hills with a complete network of forested land in a beautiful and ecologically fine environment.

(www.cenews.com.cn March 17, 2003)