Chinese Logging Ban to 'Stem Forest Damage'
11/10/99
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Title: Logging ban to 'stem forest damage'
Source: South China Morning Post - China
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 10, 1999
Logging has been banned in part of the northeast in a bid to reverse
damage from decades of over-cutting, Xinhua reported yesterday.
The ban applied to 1.4 million hectares around Yichun, Heilongjiang
province, a key state-owned forestry area.
Logging was restricted on a further 900,000 hectares.
Authorities in Yichun had replanted 250,000 hectares, Xinhua said. The
area's projected timber output would fall seven per cent this year to
two million cubic metres.
Logging has been banned or restricted on tens of millions of hectares
throughout the mainland in an attempt to reduce erosion, flooding and
other damage blamed on decades of indiscriminate cutting. Last year,
the Government banned tree-cutting on 4.4 million hectares along the
Yangtze in Sichuan province. Violators can be jailed for five years.