China's capital city has been busy planting trees throughout its urban environment to build a more beautiful Beijing.

On April 15, over 300 Taiwan natives residing, studying or investing in Beijing attended a voluntary tree planting event in Nanbaidai Village, Fangshan District.

A separate tree planting project on April 6 saw a total of 1.5 million people in 16 counties and districts plant 1.5 million trees, according to statistics from the Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top leaders, including Premier Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli, also joined in a tree planting event in Fengtai District on April 2.

On March 30, Guo Jinlong, secretary of the CPC Beijing Committee, and Wang Anshun, Beijing's major, joined 80,000 citizens in planting 160,000 trees. On the same day, the city launched this year's afforestation project of 350,000 mu in the city's flatland areas, aiming to make the city greener and form a barricade to pollution.

The city plans to plant three million trees this year through voluntary campaigns, a goal that will soon be achieved, the bureau said.

Forestation coverage in flatland areas will be increased to 400,000 mu in 2014, in a bid to help control PM2.5, according bureau vice director Qiang Jian. Qiang added that property developers will be encouraged to carry out roof greenery projects after construction is complete.

Beijing's residents are also contributing to the city's afforestation efforts in other forms, such as adopting trees and buying carbon credits.

China's capital city has been busy planting trees throughout its urban environment to build a more beautiful Beijing. [Qianlong]

By April 6 this year, a total of 3,427 people from 36 organizations purchased carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions in daily life. The total spending amounted to 563,000 yuan (US$90,800), equivalent to planting 28,000 trees.

Beijing Special Fund under China Green Carbon Fund (CGCF), the city's first charitable fund for reducing the locality's carbon footprint to cope with climate change, has received donations of 11 million yuan (US$ 1.8 milion) from more than 8,600 people of 38 organizations since its establishment in 2008.

40 percent of Beijing's land area will be covered by forests by the end of 2013, up by about 1.5 percentage points.

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