Officials from the State Development Planning Commission say the five projects include natural forest protection, cultivating tree belts in northern China, building forestry defenses against sand around Beijing, returning grain plots to forests and the establisment of nature reserves.

The natural forest protection project will be carried out in 13 provinces and regions in western China. All tree-cutting will be prohibited to protect the areas' more than 30 million hectares of forest. Another 3 million hectares of trees will be planted.

The tree belt project covers China's broad western and northern regions. The belt will extend more than 4,000 kilometers from Heilongjiang province in the northeast to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region in the northwest.

The sand defense forestry effort will be focused on curbing sandstorms that form in the northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Sandstorms frequently hit Beijing in the spring.

In western and northern China, a total of 6 million hectares of grain fields will be returned to grass or forestry.

And the establishment of nature reserves will protect animals and plants threatened by extinction. More no-hunting zones will be declared and new research centers to help animals and cultivate rare plants will be built.

These five projects are expected to bring a dramatic improvement to the overall environmental situation in China.

(CCTV.com.cn 08/16/2001)