China will Create New Forest as wide as Ireland

Photo by kompas.com

Climate change continues to show its impact. Many countries of the world are starting to work on this.

One that shows real effort is China. This is evidenced by the country's plan to plant new forests by 2018.

Unmitigated, China plans to plant a new forest about the size of Ireland. The project aims to increase the coverage of China's forests to 23 percent of their total land by the end of the decade.

Tree planting has become an important part of the bamboo curtain country's efforts to improve the environment and address climate change. The Chinese government itself has pledged to increase forest coverage from a total of 21.7 percent to 23 percent over the period 2016 to 2020.

Zhang Jianlong, head of the country's National Forestry Administration, said China plans to plant at least 6.66 million hectares of new forests this year.

Over the past five years, China has indeed grown 33.8 million hectares of new forests. The figure increases the country's forest area to 208 million hectares.

"China is at the top of the world in the newly grown forest area for the last five years, and we are aiming to plant another 6.66 million hectares this year," Zhang said, quoted by China Daily on Friday (05/01/2018).

Zhang also named three new national forests with a total area of ​​483,000 hectares to be built in the new Xiongan development zone in Hebei Province.

Quoted by Reuters on Friday (05/01/2018), Hebei is a region with a large level of pollution. The region surrounding the capital Beijing has also pledged to increase its forest area to 35 percent by the end of 2020.

China is a country that must live its population using only 7 percent of the world's fertile land. Nagara has long struggled to achieve a balance between industrial growth, maximize food production, and protect its environment.

Therefore, the Chinese government is currently promoting an "ecological pathway" program that will force provinces and regions to limit "irrational development" and reduce development near rivers, forests, and national parks.

China's environment ministry said in December 2017, 15 provinces have drawn up plans related to forest area development. While the other 16 provinces will do so this year.

Unfortunately, it is unclear how this policy impacts on agricultural land in the country.