China County Times:

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, historic, transformative, and holistic changes have taken place in China's ecological progress. As important departments for promoting ecological progress, what main measures have the forestry and grassland departments taken, and what specific contributions have been made over the past decade? Thank you.

Li Chunliang:

Thank you for your questions. First of all, I would like to thank all the friends from the press for your long-term interest and support in our work. 

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to promoting ecological progress as well as the development of forestry and grassland sector. General Secretary Xi Jinping has always kept forestry and grassland related work in mind and made a series of important expositions and instructions in this regard. He has participated in tree planting in the capital of Beijing for 10 consecutive years and conducted multiple inspections and investigations in forestry areas, tree farms, grasslands, and national parks, which has promoted historic achievements and transformations in the field of forestry and grassland.

The forestry and grassland departments at all levels have thoroughly implemented Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, made solid progress in promoting the integrated development of forestry, grassland, and national parks, to make lush forests and grassland be part of the beautiful eco-environment.

Let me first present you with a set of data. China's forest area registers 230.67 million hectares, ranking fifth worldwide; forest stock stands at 19.49 billion cubic meters, ranking sixth worldwide; and man-made forest area amounts to 87.6 million hectares, ranking first worldwide. Grassland area registers 264.53 million hectares, ranking second worldwide, and wetland area reaches about 56.67 million hectares, ranking fourth worldwide. China is also one of the 12 countries with the richest biodiversity in the world, holding almost all types of ecosystems in the world. The numbers of higher plant species and vertebrate species in China account for 10% and 13.7% of the world's total, respectively, both ranking among the top globally. The total carbon storage of forests and grassland in China stands at 11.44 billion tons, also ranking among the top in the world.

The data reflects China's excellent ecological performance in forestry and grassland development since the 18th CPC National Congress. Here, I will brief you on the performance from six aspects.

Over the past decade, we have made solid efforts to build a beautiful China by expanding greenery. Through continuous large-scale greening programs, we have afforested 64 million hectares of land, planted grass and improved the original vegetation and eco-environment of grassland on 11 million hectares of land, and added or restored more than 800,000 hectares of wetlands. Our forest coverage rate and comprehensive vegetation coverage of grassland have reached 24.02% and 50.32%, respectively. China has contributed a quarter of the world's new forest areas in the past decade.

Over the past decade, a new nature reserve system has taken shape. We have strived to build a national park-based nature reserve system with nature reserves as the foundation and various types of nature parks as supplements. The first group of five national parks has been officially established, namely the Three-River-Source National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the Hainan Tropical Forests National Park, and the Wuyishan National Park. The China National Botanical Garden and the South China National Botanical Garden have been set up in Beijing and Guangzhou, respectively. Effective protection has been ensured for 74% of wildlife species under key protection and 65% of higher plant communities. Last year, you well covered the northbound trek of the wild Asian elephants and their safe return to Yunnan province. Here, I would like to refresh your memory on these. Last year, a herd of 15 Asian elephants all returned to their original habitat of Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve after wandering more than 1,400 kilometers in 124 days, and are now living a leisurely life. Yesterday, I asked the monitoring personnel to send me pictures of the elephants, and I'd like to share one with you here. In the picture, there are four Asian elephants, including two mothers and two babies. The two babies are what we cared about the most last year. They were born during last year's northbound trip and are very healthy now. They weighed 100 kilograms at birth, and now, as I was told by the monitoring staff, appear to weigh 300 kilograms, as you can see in the picture. Thank you for your interest in them.

Over the past decade, we have focused on desert ecological protection to set a global benchmark. We have protected around 18.53 million hectares of land with desertification prevention and treatment. We have saved 5 million hectares from desertification, prevented 4.33 million hectares from becoming sandy land, and prevented 5.26 million hectares from becoming stony deserts. Up to 53% of manageable desertified land has been treated. Many role models working for desertification control, such as Wang Youde, have stood out. A spirit of desertification control has formed, represented by afforestation efforts in Babusha Forest Farm in Gansu province, Youyu county in Shanxi province, and Kekeya in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Over the past 10 years, a new forest and grassland resource management pattern has taken shape. We have introduced the forest-chief system nationwide, appointing nearly 1.2 million forest chiefs at the five administrative levels of province, city, county, township and village. Among them, 421 are also provincial-level officials. The information-based management of forest and grassland resources has improved dramatically, and an internet-based sensing system of forest and grassland ecology has been built. Thanks to these efforts, we have been able to monitor forest and grassland resources within one system, evaluate them by one set of indexes, and manage them through one map. The shares of the fire-related damaged area to the overall forest area and the total grassland area have been stably kept below 0.9‰ and 3‰, respectively, considerably lower than the global average.

Over the past decade, major ecological projects have been carried out to ensure ecological security. We have implemented 66 regional and systematic forest and grassland management projects and 40 pilot demonstration projects on national territorial greening in major ecological areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Yellow River Basin, and the Yangtze River Basin. We have carried out natural forest protection projects in an all-around way, benefiting about 171.87 million hectares of natural forests, and implemented projects converting cropland to forests and grasslands, covering around 34.67 million hectares of cropland in two rounds of practices and extending Shaanxi province's green land by 400 kilometers to the north. A total of 15 million-mu shelter forest bases have been built under the Three-North (Northeast China, North China and Northwest China) Shelterbelt Forest Program, China's earliest and longest-running afforestation project. We have implemented systems prohibiting grazing on grassland and maintained a balance between grassland and livestock to promote the rehabilitation of the vast grassland.

Over the past decade, we have implemented the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" and intensified our efforts to improve the environment and people's living standards. We have facilitated and given full play to the role of forest and grassland resources as "a reservoir, a granary, a bank vault and a carbon sink," contributing to the critical battle of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization. In 2021, the overall output value of China's forestry industry exceeded 8 trillion yuan. The plantation area of tea-oil trees reached 4.53 million hectares, benefiting nearly two million poverty-stricken people by increasing their incomes. We have actively promoted the development of the featured forestry and fruit industry. A total area of 300,000 hectares has been allocated for the forestry and fruit industry in Aksu prefecture in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, contributing to one-third of local farmers' average net income. A total of 1.102 million poverty-stricken people have been hired and registered to work as forest rangers nationwide, and 23,000 afforestation and grass planting cooperatives have been established, helping more than 20 million people get rid of poverty and increase their income.

From the achievements mentioned above, we can strongly feel that over the past decade, under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, China's ecology has continued to become better both in the aspects it reveals and the way it develops. It presents a vivid picture of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, with the people thoroughly enjoying a sound ecological environment of blue sky, green land and clear water. Meanwhile, the international community has also widely recognized China in building the ecological civilization. China has become a participant, promoter and trailblazer of global ecological civilization construction.