China planted trees and shrubs on a record 10.7 million hectares, or about 1 percent of its territory, in 2003, thanks to massive investment in afforestation projects, forestry officials said on Sunday.  

Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Forestry Administration, said the central government funding for afforestation projects grew by 26 percent year-on-year to 42.9 billion yuan (US$5.23 billion), involving projects to protect natural forests, return farmland to woodland, and the country's six major afforestation programs.

The program to protect the country's natural forests has reduced timber output by a total of 320 million cubic meters since it was launched in 1999, and 27.6 million ha of farmland and barren hills and land have been returned to woodland or planted with trees, which benefited 97 million farmers financially and ecologically, said Zhou.

China had planted a total of 1.56 million ha of forests since 1978 in northern China, building shelter-belt forests that stretched 4,480 km from northwest to northeast China in 13 provincial areas.

China's nature reserves have been expanding rapidly, totaling 13.2 percent of the country's land.

Following devastating flooding in the Yangtze River in 1998, China banned logging of its natural forests and launched nationwide campaigns to return farmland in ecologically delicate areas to woodland or grassland in 1999 as lack of vegetation was blamed partly for the flooding and worsening erosion.

(Xinhua News Agency January 12, 2004)