North China's Hebei Province, bordering the Beijing and Tianjin municipalities, has decided to invest a huge sum of money to build three large forests belts sheltering the cities from sandstorms.
According to the provincial forest department, the province will spend a total of 200 million yuan (US$24 million) in the next three years to build three 67,000-ha forests belts to the north of the two cities.
This will, together with the already existing shelter, form a 533,000-ha green shelter from winds and sands from Inner Mongolia and help water conservation efforts in the region.
The province's forest coverage rate is currently 19 percent and there are 2 million ha of land left for afforestation.
(People’s Daily 06/25/2001)
