China releases report on greening of land
We know that China contributed about 25% of the new green area added globally. So what did China do in 2024?
The Office of the National Greening Committee of China released the "2024 China Land Greening Status Report" on March 12. Here are some key takeaways:
—— In 2024, the country completed 4.446 million hectares of afforestation, 3.224 million hectares of grass planting, 2.783 million hectares of desertification, the forest coverage rate exceeds 25%, and the forest volume will exceed 20 billion cubic meters.
——The central government allocated 32 billion yuan for the construction of the Three North Shelter Forest, and completed the afforestation area of more than 3.80 million hectares.
——Completed the ecological protection and restoration area of more than 5 million hectares, including the implementation of 49 historical legacy abandoned mine ecological restoration demonstration projects, completed the restoration and treatment area of about 40,000 hectares; new soil erosion control area of 64,000 square kilometers, the construction of ecological clean small watershed 677.
——More than 6,200 urban small parks and 7,300 kilometers of urban greenways have been built.
——The new highway greening mileage is 50,000 kilometers throughout the year. The greening rate of railway lines across the country is 85.9%. The new green area around rivers and lakes is 333.8 hectares.
——Completed forestry, grassland pest control area 8.40 million hectares, 7.866 million hectares, separately.
—— Launch the national greenhouse gas voluntary emission reduction trading market, approve the first batch of 5 validation and verification agencies in the field of forestry carbon sinks, and publicize 26 afforestation carbon sinks and mangrove construction projects.
——The total output value of forest and grass industry in the whole year was 10.17 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.6% year-on-year, and the output of forest food exceeded 200 million tons, becoming the third most important agricultural product category after grain and vegetables. The national economic forest planting area is 46.667 million hectares, with an annual output value exceeding 2 trillion yuan, and the understory economic utilization forest land area 40 million hectares, the annual output value was about 1 trillion yuan.
—— The number of ecotourism tourists reached 2.76 billion, an increase of 9.1% year-on-year.
Three-North Shelter Forest Project began in 1978. Since ecological restoration takes place over many decades, it is best to evaluate it from that perspective as well. In 2022, two teams from Inner Mongolia Agricultural University reported on progress to date. The charts they provide show that there has been significant progress (since 2000) in the northeast of China--in Heilongjiang and Jilin Provinces, and in the eastern third of Inner Mongolia, plus the provinces to the south of those provinces. However, in Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, and the western 2/3 of Inner Mongolia, the biological systems have stayed the same or become worse (less net primary production of carbon materials). The border regions between China and Russia or China and Mongolia have also deteriorated.
There are two lessons to be learned. 1) No nation has the technology to overcome or compensate for changes that are taking place at the regional or global climate, particularly in the upper atmosphere. Precipitation (rainfall) is declining in northern China, in part due to climate change. Irrigation cannot compensate for this change, not even for growing crops. Deserts in China will grow no matter what efforts are made to prevent continuing desertfication. 2) The decline in plant growth in the regions along the border with Russia and Inner Mongolia suggests that China might need to reach agreements with those countries and possibly subsidize programs on the other side of the border.
China has likely devoted more resources to fighting the expansion of deserts than any other nation. But the problem is not local. The causes of a decrease in precipitation are mostly global in nature, and China cannot control what other nations do. When humanity as a whole shows a disregard for nature by industrializing beyond the capacity of nature to handle the consequences, then all living things on earth will suffer.