China recently launched the natural forest resources protection project on the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia.
A total of 29 prefectures, counties and cities of Inner Mongolia in the Yellow River Valley are included in the project, which plans to ultimately improve the ecological environment through a series of measures including a halt to cutting natural forests, aerial seeding and the closure of hillsides to plant trees over an area of 1.85 hectares in the coming 10 years.
It's reported that the project covers a total area of 27 million hectares with a 5.2 percent of forest coverage, 13 million hectares of erosion soil and 0.18 billion tons of sand drifted to the Yellow River annually. The deteriorating eco-environment has seriously effected and restricted the local economic and social development Implementation of this project will greatly accelerate the pace of ecological construction along the Yellow River valley in Inner Mongolia while the huge amounts of input in ecological construction help to boost the regional economic development and farmers and herdsmen to shake off poverty.
(People's Daily 10/19/2000)
