Effective measures has to be taken to protect the country's environment as a land stretch of 23 million mu (1.5 million) in northeast region is reported to have turned into desert, warned a forestry official Thursday.

Director Zhou Shengxian of the State Forestry Administration told a seminar on forestry in Shenyang, capital city of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, that the current desertification speed is about 300,000 mu a year in northeast Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces and part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The soil erosion area has expanded to 270 million mu in the region, and in Dahinggan Mountains, the erosion area grew up 59 percent in 2001 from 1986, he said.

As an important wood resource base, northeast China now faces such serious ecological problems that the forestry resource is drying up, he said, noting 70 percent of annual timber output comes from the younger forest.

The current tree fall is far beyond the forest growth in the area, he said, calling for efforts to restructure the local forestry industry.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2003)