The "green" transcript is eye-catching! China's ecological protection and restoration work has achieved historic achievements. National | Protection | Ecology
Nature is the fundamental condition for human survival and development. Respecting, conforming to, and protecting nature are inherent requirements for building a socialist modernized country comprehensively. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has made historic achievements in ecological protection and restoration work, continuously improving the stability of the ecosystem, and laying a solid green foundation for the construction of a beautiful China.
Recently, a new batch of integrated protection and restoration projects for mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands, and sands have started construction. These projects revolve around key nodes in the "three zones and four belts" ecological security barrier area and major national development strategic areas. Since 2016, the central government has invested an average of about 10 billion yuan per year in implementing 51 integrated protection and restoration projects for mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands, and sands across the country. It is expected that the total investment from 2021 to 2030 will exceed 250 billion yuan, bringing vitality to 10 million hectares of land.
In the past ten years, China has adhered to the principle of driving the development of land greening with major projects, such as natural forest protection, returning farmland to forest and grassland, and Three-North Shelterbelt Program. The total amount and quality of afforestation have gone hand in hand. A total of 1.02 billion mu of afforestation has been completed nationwide, with the area of artificial forests ranking first in the world. China has become the country with the fastest and largest growth in forest resources worldwide.
In the past decade, China has completed 20.33 million hectares of desertification control tasks, and 53% of the desertified land that can be treated has been treated. The net reduction in desertification and land area compared to ten years ago is 5 million hectares, and the average vegetation coverage in sandy areas has increased by 2.6 percentage points. The desert ecosystem is showing a trend of enhanced functionality and stable improvement. China has achieved the United Nations goal of zero growth in land degradation by 2030 ahead of schedule.
In October 2021, China officially established the first five national parks, including Sanjiangyuan and Giant Panda. At present, we are promoting the improvement of the establishment conditions for the pilot areas of the original national park system, including Qilian Mountains, Qianjiangyuan, Nanshan, Shennongjia, and Shangri La, and promoting the creation of 12 candidate areas for national parks, including Huanghekou.
Since the beginning of this year, China has fully completed the delineation of ecological protection red lines. A red line has included 3 million square kilometers of land area and 150000 square kilometers of sea area in the protection scope, effectively protecting 90% of terrestrial ecosystem types and 74% of national key protected wild animal and plant species.
