(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-13 07:23

Arbor Day, which fell yesterday, coincided with the 83rd death anniversary of Sun Yat-sen, father of modern China, who initiated national tree planting schemes in 1915.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 1979 designated it as a national day for the planting of trees and a reminder to the people of the importance of nature.

Thanks to the increasing awareness of the importance of trees and the unremitting efforts of people from all walks of life, the country's forest coverage rate has increased from 8.6 percent in the early 1950s to more than 18 percent today, with a total area of 175 million hectares.

However, it is still less than two-thirds of the world's average national forest coverage. And China only has 0.132 hectares of forest per capita, less than a quarter of the world average.

Yet, we should be proud of the fact that China has the largest area of artificial forests, which is more than 53 million hectares, accounting for one-third of the world total.

This is strong evidence to show that we have made great efforts in planting trees and it has paid off. Statistics from the State Afforestation Office show that 500 million volunteers participated in tree planting schemes in 2007. A total of 2.27 billion trees were planted.

The latest figure shows trees planted in the past 25 years have absorbed about 5.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide. This explicitly reveals how important a role forests can play in improving the quality of our environment.

So, apart from administrative and economic measures the government has adopted to save on energy and reduce the discharge of pollutants, we need to further increase our efforts in planting trees.

What is worth our particular attention during this tree planting season is the damage the severest snowstorms in half a century, which hit the central and southwestern regions in January and February, inflicted on the forest-rich provinces.

The freeze killed many trees, and the forest bureau in Hunan province reported a sharp decline in the forest coverage rate. Damage to forests in these provinces will certainly affect water and soil conservation, which will in turn have an impact on the water quality of the Yangtze and other rivers.

In such circumstances, Arbor Day should be an opportunity for local governments to mobilize volunteers to work even harder to save the damaged trees and plant new ones. The current tree-planting season affords that opportunity.

(China Daily 03/13/2008 page9)