Beijing has vowed to establish three large-scale tree belts
during the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05) to protect and improve
the capital's ecosystem.
The city's forest
coverage will reach 50 percent in 2005 from 43 percent in
2000, according to Director of the Beijing Forestry Bureau,
Song Xiyou.
With an annual
investment of 600 million yuan (US$72.3 million) from the
municipal government, the project will develop three different
green belts to protect the nation's capital.
In the hilly areas
in the western, northern and eastern counties of Beijing,
a tree belt will expand the counties' forest coverage to 70
percent. This will be the first green belt.
Trees will also
be planted along the banks of five major rivers, eight major
highways and two major rail lines in Beijing, with a combined
length of 1,000 kilometers. Completion of this second green
belt in Beijing's more central flat areas is expected to increase
their forest coverage by 3.5 percentage points.
Within the sandy
wasteland areas of the municipality's major rivers, 57,000
hectares of trees will be planted to help solve the problem
of sandstorms in the capital, according to Zhang Yunchang,
an official with the Beijing Forestry Bureau.
The second green
belt will add 23,300 hectares of woodlands along a 200-metre
stretch on both sides of city roads.
Green belts along
five highways, including the Beijing-Shijiazhuang expressway,
will be completed this year with a total area of 7,000 hectares.
The municipal government
will give a 15,000 yuan (US$1,812) subsidy per hectare of
trees to investor in the "green road" project.
The third green
belt will be built between Beijing's third and fourth ring
roads, and it will cover some 240 square kilometers.
In 2000, 2,670
hectares of trees, shrubs and flowers were planted inside
the Fourth Ring Road, exceeding the total for the previous
10 years.
Eight "green
zones," including fruit gardens and forest parks with
a total area of 1,450 hectares, came into being last year.
Beijing has been
working hard in recent years to improve the local environment.
The city added nearly 2,700 hectares of green space last year
and planted a total of 112,000 hectares of forest over the
past five years.
(China Daily 03/28/2001)
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