How China Got Greener?

[Randy W]

from China Pictorial on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/1963434440448602

 

 

China Pictorial

Yesterday at 6:18 PM ·

How China Got Greener?
(Photo/NASA)

With awareness of tree planting becoming so widespread in the past decades, it is no surprise that NASA released a report in February announcing that the world is literally a greener place because of China, together with India, greening up our planet.

Based on its satellite imagery, the two countries are contributing to the largest increase in global green foliage. Data shows that China alone accounts for 25 percent of the global net increase in green leaf area between 2000 and 2017, in spite of the fact that the nation has only 6.6 percent of the world's vegetated area.

It takes a nation to make such a green change, working all year round with unrelenting efforts. Read more:

 

http://www.bjreview.com/Nation/201903/t20190312_800161373.html

 

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/ChinaPic/posts/1963434440448602

 

 

 

SCMP video -

Earth is greener largely thanks to China and India, Nasa satellite study finds

 

[Randy W]

BUT . . . go back about 50 years

 

from the SCMP

 

 

Deforestation to blame for Beijing's pollution

Xun Zhou says the smog and dust that now plague Beijing can be traced back to the massive deforestation during the Great Leap Forward that left China scarred by environmental disaster

 

 

The environmental disaster China is experiencing now goes back to the time of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. To transform China into the dreamed-of industrial superpower Mao envisaged, it needed a huge amount of steel. Forests were destroyed as trees were felled to feed backyard furnaces. Many of the mountainous regions throughout China were deforested.

. . .

A number of documents I came cross in archives in China show that in the time of the Great Leap Forward, at least one third of China's open forests were chopped down and one fifth of closed forests were destroyed in areas immediately surrounding the Gobi.

In western Shaanxi province, at least 60 per cent of trees, which were originally planted to protect the railways, were chopped down. In major irrigation regions by the Jing, Wei and Luo rivers, more than 30,000 trees along the canals were felled. In Gansu province, along Tianshui region's Xiaolong mountain, and Tangou in Wushan county, some one third of the forest was destroyed.

 

[Randy W]

from the Global Times on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/2211778185569736

 

Global Times

March 12 at 8:30 PM ·

【InPics】Happy 41st Anniversary of China’s #ArborDay! Feast your eyes on the breathtaking forest scenery around China. In the past 40 years:
-over 15 billion people have volunteered in tree planting
-China’s forest area has increased 80%
-Forest coverage increased from 12% to 21.66% (Photos: VCG)

http://www.globaltimes.cn/galleries/2577.html

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/globaltimesnews/posts/2211778185569736