Currently China has 57.45 million ha of reserved man-made
forests, ranking the first in the world, with a forest coverage
rate of 18. 21 percent. While many countries have seen a decline in
forest resources, China has increased both the area and reserves of
its forests and was listed by the United Nations Environment
Program as one of the 15 countries preserving the greatest area of
forest.?
From 1998 to 2001, the state invested 42.7 billion yuan in
central and western China to protect vegetation, subsidize local
farmers and promote projects transforming over-cultivated farmland
back to forests and pastures. In 2003, the Regulations on
Conversion of Farmlands to Forest were formally implemented. The
project to reforest cultivated land has been implemented in 25
provinces, autonomous regions and centrally administered
municipalities. By 2005, 22.97 million ha of cultivated land across
the country had been reforested. Another effective measure of
forest protection is the natural forest conservation program
started in 1998 that stipulated a nationwide end to the felling of
trees in natural forests.?
As stipulated by the Research Report on China's Sustainable
Development Strategy on Forestry, China's forest coverage rate is
expected to reach 28 percent by 2050, with an added area of 110
million ha of planted forest.
