China's efforts to build the world's largest shelterbelt has entered a new stage with focus placed on controlling desertification and soil erosion in the Loess Plateau.
When the project is completed in 2050, the ecological environment will be improved greatly in 40 percent of the country's land area, the State Forestry Administration (SFA) said Monday.
The "Three-North" Shelterbelt Project has been carried out for 23 years in northeastern, northern and northwestern China, areas that are vulnerable to rampant droughts, sand storms and soil erosion.
The shelterbelt stretches 4,480 km from east to west, and between 560 to 1,460 km from north to south, covering about 4.05 million square km, or 42 percent of China's land area.
Desertification caused by natural factors and human activities has become a key ecological problem in the "Three-North" area, which results in shrinking arable land shrinking, frequent naturaldisasters and growing poverty for the local people.
The "Three-North" area is the home to 98 percent of deserts, Gobi and land of desertification in China. More than 4.5 billion yuan (US$544 million) of direct economic losses caused by sand storms are reported annually in this area.
A sand belt formed in the area has extended to 2.7 million square km, or 30 percent of China's total land area, and is still expanding, said SFA Director Zhou Shengxian, quoting the surveillance results from the SFA desertification control center.
Serious soil erosion and frequent droughts as a result of desertification have baffled social and economic development in the area.
(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2001)
