The program, started in 1978, was described by Deng Xiaoping as to build a “Green Great Wall”, and was aimed to set up an anti-desert shelterbelt stretching over a 4,480-km-long desert-dominated area in north China.

Director of the State Administration of Forestry Zhou Shengxian said during a meeting Thursday that the effect of the program’s first-phase building is under evaluation by international experts and the second-phase of the project will be drafted soon, which will extend into 2050.

Forestry authorities also made public their annual plan for afforestation and protection of existing forests, and named 2001 as China’s “Forest Year”.

The forestry sector is shifting from being a profit-seeking business to being more environmentally friendly, said Zhou, adding that forest protection will be one of his administration’s major tasks.

He said that a five-year anti-desertification project around Beijing has started, hoping to raise the forest coverage rate of this region from the current 13.4 percent to 27 percent in 2005.

The project will greatly reduce the sandstorm threat to Beijing, upon completion, Zhou said.

A natural forest protection program, launched last year, is expected to have 96.2 billion yuan of government investment in the next decade.

Afforestation projects in other areas than north China are also being carried out, such as in coastal areas and along the Yangtze River, Dongting and Poyang lakes.

(People’s Daily 03/01/2001)