The city's forest coverage will reach 50 per cent in 2005 from 43 per cent in 2000, according to the director of the Beijing Forestry Bureau Song Xiyou.

With an annual investment of 600 million yuan (US$72.3 million) from the municipal government, the project will develop three different green belts to protect the nation's capital.

In the hilly areas in the western, northern and eastern counties of Beijing, a tree belt will expand the counties' forest coverage to 70 per cent. This will be the first green belt.

Trees will also be planted along the banks of five major rivers, eight major highways and two major raillines in Beijing, with a combined length of 1,000 kilometres. Completion of this second green belt in Beijing's more central flat areas is expected to increase their forest coverage by 3.5 percentage points.

Within the sandy wasteland areas of the municipality's major rivers, 57,000 hectares of trees will be planted to help solve the problem of sandstorms in the capital, according to Zhang Yunchang, an official with the Beijing Forestry Bureau.

The second green belt will add 23,300 hectares of woodlands along a 200-metre stretch on both sides of city roads.

Green belts along five highways, including the Beijing-Shijiazhuang expressway, will be completed this year with a total area of 7,000 hectares.

The municipal government will give a 15,000 yuan (US$1,812) subsidy per hectare of trees to investor in the "green road'' project.

The third green belt will be built between Beijing's third and fourth ring roads, and it will cover some 240 square kilometres.

In 2000, 2,670 hectares of trees, shrubs and flowers were planted inside the fourth ring road, exceeding the total for the previous 10 years.

Eight "green zones,'' including fruit gardens and forest parks with a total area of 1,450 hectares, came into being last year.

Beijing has been working hard in recent years to improve the local environment. The city added nearly 2,700 hectares of green space last year and planted a total of 112,000 hectares of forest over the past five years.

(China Daily 03/28/2001)