NE China province bans logging in China’s largest forest for 10 years
People’s Daily Online (English version), January 10, 2011 [here]
Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province has banned logging in the country’s largest forest for 10 years, to protect the natural environment and reduce China’s carbon dioxide emissions.
Lumbering will be forbidden in the Great and Lesser Hinggan Mountains (GLHM) in Heilongjiang Province from 2011 until 2020, in accordance with the GLHM Forest Protection and Economic Reform Program issued recently by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and State Forestry Administration.
China’s largest natural forest reserve, the GLHM forest is over 430,000 square kilometers in size. It spreads across Heilongjiang and into neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
In Inner Mongolia, logging in the GLHM will be reduced by more than half, to 1.27 million cubic meters in 2011, and be completely banned by 2020, Zhang Guobao, deputy director of NDRC, said Sunday at a meeting in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang.
The GLHM forest reserves are expected by 2020 to increase by 400 million cubic meters, Zhang said. … [more]