China Green Times reported on July 19th that the Integrated Forestry Development Project with World Bank Loans got approval from the World Bank's Board on July 6th and will be lauched in 68 counties from Hebei, Liaoning, Shanxi, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces this September.
The project plans to take 6 years with a total investment of about 200 million U.S. dollars. With 100 million U.S. dollars of World Bank loans, it aims at improving project area’s forest cover from 36.8% to 38.7%, increasing 53.69 million cubic meters of soil water storage annually and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2.8 million tons through improving multi-functional plantation as well as existing plantations. We aim to give 177,000 hectares of farmland an effective protection through effectively controlling soil erosion and desertification.
The project includes three aspects: First of all, to establish multi-functional plantation, that is to create about 93,000 hectares multi-functional plantations on the degeneration and erosion land. The allocation is 24,555 hectares in Hebei, 27,032 hectares in Shanxi, 25,606 hectares in Liaoning and 15,780 hectares in Anhui. Secondly, to improve existing plantations, that is to plant some other tree species on the 40,000 hectares degenerated pure plantations to transform it into mixed plantation and improve forest ecosystem structure and function. The allocation is 24,461 hectares in Zhejiang and 15,180 hectares in Anhui.
Thirdly is the organizational support, project management and supervision and assessment. In this section, the project will provide support on China's ongoing reform of collective forestry equity system and strengthen implementation capacities, management capacities and monitoring capabilities of project institutions. The project plans to carry out various training of 250,000 man-days and technical advice of 3576 man-days as well as forest management proposal application and demonstration area of 400 hectares and setting up 20 farmer associations.
The purpose of Forestry Development Project with the loan from World Bank is to optimize forest ecosystems and play a variety of functions of forests. The Integrated Forestry Development emphasizes on social benefits as well as economic benefits. It will have significant effects on stopping ecological degeneration, protecting land’s ecological security, enhancing protection of forest vegetation in the project area, improving the quality of forest resources, promoting forest management and enriching biodiversity.
It is said that, in addition to the function of soil and water conservation, sand-fixing and farmland protection, this Integrated Forestry Development Project will directly create labor opportunities by 40, 000 labor days per year, provide about 6.75 million cubic meters wood, 410,000 tons of fuel wood, 860,000 tons of bamboo and 678,000 tons of fruits.