A mass drive to build a forest belt at the Junggar Basin in northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has started.

Trees will be planted on 100,000 hectares of land around the dry and barren Junggar Basin, the second largest of its kind in China. The project will take three to 10 years.

A nursery plant, capable of breeding 1.5 million saplings annually, has begun operation.

Workers at the Karamay, located on the western edge of the Junggar Basin, are leveling land, building canals and making other preparations for the spring planting.

(People’s Daily 01/12/2001)