Recently, the central government implemented the strategy of developing the central and western regions, which cover 5.4 million square kilometres and accommodate 23 per cent of the nation's population.

On March 16, China announced initial expenditures of 310 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion) to develop infrastructure in the region.

The money will be used to speed up the construction of 78 large and medium projects.

Such a decision is of great significance to the sustainable national economic growth.

However, environmental protection is a major issue that must be tackled first, said the article.

If measures are not taken immediately to substantially improve the environment, the strategy of realizing the sustained development of western areas will achieve nothing.

In the process of developing the region, environmental protection programmes must be incorporated into the general development plan and new environmental disasters must be avoided, warned the paper.

The deterioration of the natural environment has had an unfavourable influence on socio-economic development outside the western areas.

Disturbing environmental problems such as desertification, soil erosion and flood are all caused by the destruction of vegetation.

Environmental deterioration has caused the lingering poverty and slow economic development in western areas, the article said.

Sandstorms that hit Beijing this spring are the direct result of ecological degradation.

The sandstorms come from the deserts of the Republic of Mongolia andnorthwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Statistics from the State Forestry Administration indicate that an average of 2,460 square kilometres of land turns into desert annually in China.

Unfettered land reclamation caused by increasing population pressure is the primary cause for the change.

In Alxa, for example, one of the major origins of sand, the population density is more than two times what the dry land can normally tolerate.

In Inner Mongolia, overgrazing has diminished the natural prairie by at least 30 per cent over past 50 years, while livestock has doubled in only two decades.

Although China initiated a large-scale afforestation project in the 1980s to reduce sandstorms, inefficiency and human destruction have caused the project's results to be less than stellar, claimed the article.

For now, the project is unable to prevent Beijing from being pummelled with sandstorms from the north.

As a result, the central government has paid more attention to the problem.

Premier Zhu Rongji called for immediate and efficient efforts to combat desertification and build green belts to improve the environment during an inspection trip to Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region last month.

The State Forestry Administration is now considering a new anti-desertification plan.

The article put forward two suggestions to address the problem:

First, farmers should convert cultivated land to grasslands and woods. Vegetation should correspond local conditions.

Such measures are part of the central government's western development strategy, which aims to slow desertification.

With State compensation of money and food, farmers should plant vegetation on slopes of more than 30 degrees.

Because of severe drought, desertification and the shortage of vegetation suitable for the region's semi-arid climate, many trees and grasses now planted are likely to die.

To improve reforestation methods, the State Forestry Administration will use new technology, such as dune fortification and different configurations of trees and grass.

Second, the government should offer people in degraded areas alternative energy sources, either power or gas, to replace the traditional fuel of firewood, which is usually cut by local residents from sapless trees and bush in winter.

(China Daily)