The initiative aims to grow 200 hectares of trees in the city centre in five years to make the area more beautiful and improve the environment.

Now is the best season in Shanghai to grow deciduous trees such as ginkgo, beech and goldenrain.

On Saturday, government officials, private business owners, workers and students planted trees in 34 different places with a total area of 30 hectares.

Each participant planted a tree they had bought themselves for between 30 and 50 yuan (US$3.75 to US$6.25). Professional gardeners will make sure that all the trees survive.

Lu Guanping, a senior landscape official, said an 87-year-old man from Changning District bought trees for all 14 members of his family.

The compulsory tree planting has been taking place in the city for 20 years. Each resident is obliged to plant a tree. But some people paid more attention to the propaganda effect rather than the survival of the trees.

Guan Qunfei, director of the Public Green-Spaces Division of the Shanghai Landscaping Administrative Bureau, said: "If all the trees that people have grown had survived, the city would have become a forest."

To change this situation, on March 12 this year, Guan's division brought together more than 3,000 people in three areas of the city to plant trees. Each person paid 25 yuan (US$3) to buy the sapling and plant the tree.

(China Daily December 3, 2001)