Over half of the seedlings and saplings to be planted under China's afforestation project in the 2001-05 period, the 10th Five-Year Plan period, are expected to be provided by key State-run nurseries, according to the forestry authorities.

So far, China has built 2,300 such nurseries, covering 95,000 hectares of land for the cultivation of seedlings and over 1.8 million hectares of land for the collection of high-quality seeds, according to Zhou Shengxian, minister of the State Forestry Administration.

Annually, China is capable of producing seedlings that could cover about 20 million square kilometers of land.

However, only 30 percent of the seedlings used for afforestation come from the State-run nurseries, and only 20 per cent of those planted have a high survival rate and are drought resistant and are therefore of a high quality.

The quality of seedlings is low due to the lack of control and supervision over the market. Poor quality goods are prevalent, Zhou complained, indicating that they "have harmed the legal interests and zeal of millions of people working hard towards the afforestation of China in recent years."

Using poor quality seedlings could spell disaster for China's long-term afforestation plans.

Zhou said he hopes local forestry authorities will make the planting of ecological forests and the development of voluntary tree-planting projects their top priorities in the years to come

(China Daily 02/02/2001)