China Plans To Have A Quarter Of The Country Forested By 2020

[Barrett808]

China Plans To Have A Quarter Of The Country Forested By 2020
Beijing, China (AFP)- China plans to have a quarter of the country covered by forest within 15 years as it tries to repair the damage loggers have done to fuel the runaway economy, state media said Monday.

The State Forestry Administration said forest coverage will reach 23 percent in the next 10 to 15 years, an increase of five percent.

"The increase in forests will outpace what the country consumed or lost during the growth of its economy," administration director Zhou Shengxian was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

Addressing a conference in Beijing, he said new plans have been made for planting trees throughout China.

"China's forestry development is now entering a turning point with six key programs to protect natural forests, wildlife and natural reserves, to prevent soil from eroding and grassland from turning into desert," Zhou said.

(more)

http://www.sinodaily.com/news/china-05zzzzzk.html

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Last piece of news I would expect to hear out of China. Hope they are

serious.

[bleedingheart]

3. and successful....

great idea....

Cooks Forest in PA was once completely logged except for a portion of old growth....today it is a thriving forest area...never would know it was once a field...

[Massacure]

20. The federal government in China is serious about environmental damage.

The provinces are a whole different ballgame. They are corrupt and tend to ignore the federal government.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. In light of the worsening drought in China ...

... they will water the new trees with Alaskan North Slope crude oil.

--p!
With New Direct-To-Greenhouse-Gas Carbon!

[havocmom]

6. Actually, if you wanna lessen drought problems, trees en mass help

Trees help create pockets of humidity. Get enough together and you will get more moisture

[havocmom]

4. Good for them. Trees do a whole lot of good for so many facets of life.

Too bad we don't have leaders with a little forsight.

[jonkronz2003]

10. Unless you're a repug....

then trees are only good for causing forest fires....LOL

[krkaufman]

22. Euthanasia bill to be submitted by Republicans next session....

... entitled Healthy Patients.

[phantom power]

5. My dad made an interesting observation about this.

He pointed out that China is currently buying most of it's raw materials from the rest of the world, and simultaneously minimizing the use of it's own resources.

Sooner or later, the rest of the world's resources are going to become scarce. At that point, China will have both an enormous manufacturing base, but it will have it's own resources to draw on, while the rest of the world runs out.

[SnoopDog]

7. It would seem China is doing many things right these days... At least

economically and in this case environmentally.

We, on the other hand, or more directly, our government, is literally destroying our country.

Our wealth is going overseas. Our jobs are going overseas. We owe trillions of dollars. We import more than we export. We even import food. (By the way, what does happen when 'they' start limiting our food imports and we are not growing our own food....hmmmm).

We dump toxins into our air, water, our land, and our food. We strip lumber from our forests.


Perty soon, the USA will just be one giant toxic land fill...

Why do we Americans allow this to happen?

[DrJackson]

9. Complacency

We are too comfortable in our materialistic lifestyles that the thought of doing anything that may take away our SUVs and super-sized lunches is met with immediate skepticism and fear. Time for a paradigm shift, don't you think?

[SnoopDog]

11. Well, Dr. J, yes we are complacent. But, eventually, they will be..

harmed by the crap our government is pulling. Their children might get leukemia, or, their job will get outsource, or their country home will have the nearby trees cleared, or they will find out that their public water supply is laced with toxins, or, or, or... the list goes on.

I grew up in Los Angeles. I lived one mile from the mountains and many days could not see them because of smog. That was 50 years ago. Although I do not live there now, many days you cannot see those mountains. In other words we still have done nothing to clean up our environment. We are killing ourselves.

If nothing else could start a revolution in our country, I think it would because we are all dying due to what our corporations are doing to the environment, our cars, our power plants, etc.

I am tired of living in our toxic waste land called the USA. And it is all so that corporation can have more money. Has anybody ever stop to ask us if maybe we would PAY MORE for something if we can live cleanly? Funk-n-a yes.

By the way, our government has basically done nothing for us - the citizens or our environment - since about 1950.

It is time for a change everybody...

[DrJackson]

12. I couldn't agree more

I was just trying to get into the heads of the general population, based largely with my own experiences trying to convince people of the dangers we face.

It seems that the average person is far too engaged in their own lives to think much about the bigger picture. I know I didn't think twice about out-sourcing until it happened to me.

We need a wake-up call, not just in this country, but across the world. Pollution that we create in the US is not just our problem -- it can affect ecosystems across the planet. Kyoto was a good idea, but I don't think it goes far enough.

Here's my idea -- in the 60's, President Kennedy made a pledge that we would have men on the moon by the end of the decade. Armed with that challenge, and knowing that failure was not an option, we did it. So how about a new challenge -- within a decade we will develop a new clean, sustainable source of energy that is cheap enough to provide to all developing nations, but will not have a single adverse affect on the environment or the health of any living creature on this planet. In this case, failure does not mean a loss of prestige, rather it means the eventual extinction of not only the human race, but many of the other species on the planet.

I highly recommend any book by Carl Sagan. He addresses many of these issues, and if anyone's ideas could serve as an example of what we should aspire to as citizens of this planet, it is definitely his.

Okay, rant over for now.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Y'know, I don't agree with that anymore

I no longer buy the idea that Americans are weak, soft, and decadent -- or, as we say these days, fat, complacent and materialistic.

I DO strongly believe that most Americans are worked to fatigue, scurry around like lab rats on a treadmill, and use things like food and TV as comforts and tranqilizers. Most people are as unaware of how much material wealth this country has as they are unaware of politics. They are simply too worn-out (as a group) to want to pay attention to it.

But you're spot-on about the paradigm shift. Unfortunately, there is cataclysmic danger involved in that opportunity. So now we're dealing with exhausted, withdrawn, tranquilized lab rats facing disaster and horrifying mass death.

Not a very pleasant situation to work with, it is?

--p!

[DrJackson]

15. No it is not

But it is what we have at the moment. Perhaps the reality is somewhere in between -- I know people who just don't care, for whom the title "complacent sheep" seems to be appropriate. Likewise, I know people who fit your description -- tired, overworked, and just trying to survive another day. Neither is a very favorable outlook.

The question remains, however, what do we do about it? I'm putting together a list of several practical (at least in my opinion) ideas I have had over the last few years that I will post later today (hopefully). I would be very receptive to any debate about the issue.

[Dogmudgeon]

17. I'll be looking for it

Edited to add link.

A lot of intense, productive dialog on these subjects happens in the Energy and Environment forum, and several detailed proposals have appeared and can be read in the archives. If you don't post it there, at least post a link so we can read it.

--p!

[Eloriel]

8. Help with global warming too

slightly, anyway.

I'm impressed.

[phusion]

13. Anyone heard of Gaviotas?

An eco/tech village in Eastern Colombia. They planted 1.6 million trees:

"The solution is the nearly 20,000 forested acres. In the past 12 years, Gaviotas has planted 1.6 million Caribbean pines (after finding that no indigenous tree would grow on the prairie). To the surprise of foresters, Gaviotans chose not to cut their standing timber. Instead they are converting their windmill factory to process pine resin."

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC42/Colombia.htm

[DrJackson]

18. That is amazing!

I just finished the article and I am in awe . . . this is the sort of thing we need here in the States.

[phusion]

19. Absolutely!

I've read the book: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World

It was an amazing story and worth reading...

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[HereSince1628]

16. I saw Beijing's Green Wall last month

hundreds of thousands of Poplars. The intent seems to be to act as a windbreak around Beijing, to help stop the movement of dust which can be bad. The second afternoon we were there the sky was a tannish gray and the 4PM sun hung in the sky like an orange ball.

[goforit]

21. An elementary idea, but hats off to China for taking initiative!!

The only way humanity can survive.