Forest Resources According to the fourth national investigation on the forest resources in the whole country (1989~1993), the forest land area in the whole country was 260 million hectares and the forest area was 130 million hectares.

The per capita forest area of the Chinese people was 0.11 hectares, about 17.2% of the world average figure, ranking the 119th in the world. The per capita forest cumulation in China was 8.6 m2, about 12.0% of the per capita level in the world. China is a country with low per capita forest cumulation, the forest coverage rate being 13.9%, far below the 26.0% of the world forest coverage rate. The net increase of the forest timber in the whole country was 399 million m3 and the actual annual consumption amount is 344 million m3. The per capita timer consumption was 0.12 m3.

Grassland Resources There were rich grassland resources in China, with 390 million hectares of natural grassland of various kinds, accounting for about 405 of the national territory. However, the per capita grassland area was only 0.33 hectare, being about one half of the per capita grassland in the world.

Most of the grassland in our country has degraded or is degrading. The grassland of medium degradation (including sandification and alkalization) is as much as 130 million hectares.

Pests Attack and Fire In 1999, there were 6,847 cases of forest fires and the affected forest area hit 43,690 hectares. The fire cases and the affected forest areas increased by 53.7% and 59.3% respectively compared with the previous year. There were 432 cases of grassland fires, among which there were six cases of serious fire and four cases of extraordinary fire. The grassland affected by fire was 190,000 hectares.

In 1999, there were 7.626 million hectare forest with pest and disease, among which, the area with pest was 5.909 million hectares and the area with disease was 1.032 million hectares. The area with rat attack was 685,000 hectares. The area with Dendrolimus was 685,000 hectares and the one with poplar pest was 487,000 hectares. The most dangerous pest was Nematoda that affected 76,000 hectares of forest. The area with grassland mice and pests was 43.27 million hectares, with disasters affecting 27.33 hectares. The prevention area of grassland mice and pests was 5.67 million hectares, among which the bio-prevention area was 2.36 million hectares.

Land Sandification There were 1.689 million hectares of sandification land in the whole country, accounting for 17.6% of the territory of the country, mainly located between 35 degree to 50 degree of north latitude, resulting in a sand belt of 4,500 kilometres long and 600 kilometres wide from Talimu Basin to the west part of Songneng Plain.

 

Afforestation In 1999, the area of afforestation in China was 4.8 million hectares, among which, the artificial afforestation was 4.05 million hectares and the forest planted by planes was 750,000 hectares. The newly increased mountain area closed for forest cultivation was 5.71 million hectares. The number of people participated in voluntary afforestation was 580 million and there were 2.4 billion trees planted by voluntary people.

Key Ecological Forest Engineering The completed afforestation area in the ten key ecological forest engineering projects in the whole country ("Three-North Shelter Belt, Shelter Belt in the Middle and Upper Reaches of the Yangtze, Coastal Shelter Belt, Plain Re-Vegetation, Re-Vegetation in Taihang Mountain, Sandification Prevention and Treatment, the shelter belts in Middle Reaches of the Yellow River, Huai River and Tai Lake Basins, Pearl river Basin and Liao river Basins) was 2.44 million hectares, accounting for 50.8% of the total afforestation area in the whole country, among which, 1.26 million hectares were completed in the "Three-North Shelter Belt, 300,000 hectares were finished in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze, 70,000 hectares were finished along the coastal areas, and 320,000 hectares were completed in the re-vegetation engineering projects in Tanghang Mountain. The total afforestation area in the sandification prevention and treatment engineering was 197,000 hectares.

The afforestation and re-vegetation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze and the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River was the important measure to improve the ecological environment in the Yangtze and Yellow River Basins. The scope the engineering mainly included 13 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in the upper reaches of the Yangtze (upwards from the Three Gorges Reservoir area) and the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River (upwards from the Xiaolangdi Reservoir), relating to 772 counties. Comprehensive measures of "Restoring land for forest (grassland), closing mountain for forest cultivation, replacing subsidies with grain and individual contract" were taken in the natural forest protection engineering in the upper reaches of the Yangtze and the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. The projects are divided into two phases: the first phase is from 2000~2005 and the second phase is from 2006~2010.

Natural Forest Protection Engineering in the State-Owned Forest Zones Since 1998, achievements have been made in natural forest protection engineering the key state-owned forest zones in the north-east, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Hainan: the production of timber was reduced significantly on the one hand, decreasing from 18.53 million m3 in 1997 to 15.41 million m3 in 1999, with 16.8% reduction; on the other hand, forest re-vegetation had accelerated and 1.232 million hectares of ecological forest of public welfare and 1.707 million hectares of forest cultivation were completed. In addition, forest resources management was enhanced and the tree cutting surpassing the limitation in the forest was basically controlled.

Sandification Land Treatment By the end of 1999, the total area of sandification treatment was 120 million mu and there were over 100 million mu of newly increased forest and grass vegetation.

Grassland and Degradation of Grassland

Grasslands in China mainly distribute in arid and semi-arid regions include 398 counties (banners, cities) in 12 provinces (areas) such as Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shangxi, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. The total area is 4,903,900 km². Among them, there is 2,742,200 km² of grassland, which is 69.8% of overall grassland area in whole country while there is 1,377,700 km² of degradation grassland, which is 50.24% of total amount.

Grassland degradation shows that vegetation are degraded; output of grass reduced; poisonous, harmful and low-grade grass grow up; soil is sandificated and eroded by wind; soil and water loss; soil is salified; the weight of grazed livestock is reduced; mouse and inspect pest become rampant; productivity of grassland are destroyed a lot.

The degradation of grassland has several reasons. It is the result of combination between natural and artificial factors. Affected by the greenhouse effect, temperature raise up, rainwater is reduced, more and more droughts appear in the whole world. Especially in spring, high temperature, drought, and strong wind have great influence to grasslands. However, the most important reason is unreasonable development and utility of grassland by human.

1. Grazing overload. Grazing beyond the capacity of grassland is the main reason of degradation.

The pverload rate of lifestock in Chinese grasslands is about 50-300%. Due to the absence of pasture during winter and spring, the grassland has weak disaster resistance, and the pasture is over-eated from the very beginning of bing green. Therefore, it is difficult for the grass to renew its vital force.

2. Blind land reclamation. In recent decade, only in the 4 provinces of Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang, there are more than 29,000,000 Mu area of grassland have been reclaimed to plant cereal crops. Most of glebes have severe result of sandification and degradation, even total crop failure. There are 1,400,000 Mu area has been desolated, which is 49%of total reclaimed area.
3. Severe deforestation and dig, which severely destroy grassland vegetation. A large number of people who engage in agriculture come to grassland to dig medicinal materials such as flagelliform nostoc, liquorice, and Chinese ephedra, fell frutex such as diversiform-leaved poplar, and sacsaoul, or dig root in order to get some fuel.
4. Abusing water resource. To develop irrigation in grassland make people use water immoderately, and cause flooding, at last has the result of salinization of soil.

Main measures for grassland degradation prevention and control are as follows: Firstly, to forbid grassland reclamation, prevent further destroying grassland, stop reclamation and back to plant grass, plant grass in an enclosed area, renew grassland vegetation. Secondly, to manage grassland well, carry on contract and responsibility system well, limit the top quantity of livestock in the grassland, forbid overload grazing according to the law. Thirdly, to construct well on biology environment. The whole society should pay attention to the biology environment in grasslands since it affect not only the local pastoral production and life, but also survival environment of people lived in other area. The super flood in 1998 has great relationship with destroyed vegetation of grassland and forest in upper and middle reaches of Changjiang River. Sandstorm, which appeared so many times in north this year, also has great relationship with degradation of grassland and sandification in vast arid and semi-arid region. Therefore, the whole society should pay attention to the biology environment construction in our country.

The essence of grassland degradation is that a big number of substance being taken away from the grassland, which could not get any compensate, and which income falling short of expenditure. This violates the basic principles.

The degradation of grassland is a dynamic succession. It has both of evolutionary and staggered character. In accordance with its order and degree of degradation, it may be divided into three kinds as follows:

1. Light degradation: Pasture continually being mowed, eaten or gnawed. It has no time for growing up and accumulating nutrient. Its vital force is reduced. Its height and be cover degree is decreased. The output of pasture is about 20%-30% less than the normal grassland, but the component of it does not change a lot.
2. Middle degradation: Fine pasture among grass lay gradually reduces because of over utility. Bad dainty, short and dense, poisonous and harmful plant correspondingly increases. While the grassland vegetation become to low output and low quality, the structure, physical and chemical character of soil become worse. The output of pasture decreases about 30%-40%. Pasture providing for grazed livestock is severely absent.
3. Severe degradation: The condition of vegetation and soil become further worse. The output of pasture reduces at least 40%. Severe erosions appear in grasslands. Livestock could not get enough nutrient, they could not grow and develop normally, their reproduce ability fails, their sizes become small, or low reproduced livestock replaces high reproduced livestock. Both sides of grassland and livestock suffer. The throughput and bio-function of the whole grassland severely decrease. If this procedure could not be turned and if it goes beyond the support limit of bio-system of the grassland, wind erosion, water erosion, sandification, salinization, and infertilitation will come up. Even the collapse of bio-system in grassland will appear, the grassland will loss its reproduction ability of substance, and the grass will not exist no longer.