Tree planting campaign deemed success
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E-mail China Daily, March 12, 2013
Authorities have hit back at criticisms of Beijing's ambitious tree planting campaign, claiming the majority take root.
Over the past 32 years, 78 million people have planted 189 million trees throughout the capital, with a survival rate of 88 percent, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry said on Monday.
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Two students water the trees in Beijing. [File photo] |
To further improve the survival rate and biological diversity, the bureau has been increasing the varieties of trees, according to Tong Haiming, deputy director of publicity for the bureau.
"We have more species of trees, including pagodas, poplars and pines," Tong said at a news conference.
Beijing has undertaken ambitious reforestation initiatives. According to the bureau, the forest coverage rate rose from 12.83 percent in 1980 to 38.6 percent by the end of 2012. The percentage of green coverage in urban areas rose from 20.08 percent to 46.2 percent in the same period.
However, environmental NGOs have raised doubts about the impact of the projects.
One of the concerns regards the planting of non-native trees, which experts say struggle to survive because of their high water demand, especially in arid regions such as Beijing, said Dong Yunlan, a researcher with the Henan Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences.
Tree planting has also started to focus more on the planting itself rather than the benefits it brings to the ecological environment, said Yang Heng, a researcher with the Nature University, an NGO in Beijing.
"Many trees are pulled out or eradicated not long after they are planted, when the land falls into the hands of property developers," said Yang. "With poor maintenance, many trees simply die after a few days."
Instead of encouraging the public to plant more trees, the government should better preserve the existing ones and stop them from being pulled out, she said.
"Many of the trees are just planted for the sake of planting," said Feng Yongfeng, founder of the Green Beagle, an environmental protection NGO based in the capital.
"No one takes good care of the trees after they are planted and the survival rate is pretty poor because of the lack of later maintenance."
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