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Northeast China's Liaoning Province aims to plant 2.7 billion trees by 2005, in a bid to conserve its ecological environment, according to a plan issued last year by related authorities of the province.
Liaoning, a traditional manufacturing base, has for years focused its attention on production, particularly its heavy industrial goods and raw materials, bringing devastation to the ecological environment.
To pay more attention to afforestation, the local authorities plan to plant the 2.7 billion trees from 2001 to 2005, 1.3 billion more than during the 1996-2000 periods.
According to Governor Bo Xilai, the project began last year with the planting of 780 million seedlings, which had a survival rate of more than 80 percent despite a severe drought in the region.
At the same time, he said, the province also afforested 245,000 hectares of hillsides, turned 51,400 hectares of farmland back into forests and started a natural forest protection project in the east, reducing the volume of felling by 1.93 million cubic meters.
(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2002)
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