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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

China Lumberjacks to Become Tree-Planters

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

9/5/98

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

China's forest ecosystems have hit the wall. Declining forest

ecological functionality is taking its toll, in this case, through

flooding. As a portent of things to come worldwide, China is

faced with a crisis situation of needing to reconstruct forest

ecosystems, which previously provided many values which were not

valued monetarily nor fully appreciated. It is far harder (and

time consuming) to create a forest than to destroy one--yet the

world will be faced with this challenge over the next centuries.

The more old-growth and late successional forest that remains

prior to the imminent closure of logging in mature natural

forests, the better. We need the genetic materials and

"blueprints" to reconstruct functional forest ecosystems composed

of native species and community assemblages.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: China lumberjacks to become tree-planters

Source: Reuters

Status: Copyright, contact source for permission to reprint

Date: September 4, 1998

BEIJING, Sept 4 (Reuters) - China will order its army of

lumberjacks to lay down their axes and plant trees, the Xinhua

news agency said on Friday amid mounting official concern over how

rampant logging has worsened deadly flooding this year.

The State Forestry Administration had drawn up a 19.5 billion yuan

($2.3 billion) plan to stop logging along the Yangtze and Yellow

rivers and in the northeast and to start large-scale

reforestation, Xinhua said.

``With the implementation of this forest-conservation project,

over one million people now employed by the forestry industry

will lose their present jobs by 2000,'' it said.

``Most of those laid off will have new jobs as tree planters,

forest tenders and other related work,'' it quoted Li Yucai, the

administration's deputy director, as saying.

The plan, to start this year, calls for a halt to logging by 65

lumber companies and a cut in timber production of 10 million

cubic metres (353 million cubic feet) by 70 other companies, it

said.

The plan aimed to better protect ancient forests and shift China's

timber production to new forests by 2010, it said.

Although China's forests covered 87.26 million hectares (215.6

million acres), or nine percent of its territory, unchecked

logging threatened to wipe out all its forests within 10 years, it

quoted one expert as saying. Authorities have increasingly

acknowledged the role of logging along China's major waterways

in devastating floods, which have killed more than 3,000 people

and caused at least 166 billion yuan in damage this year.

``The devastating floods in China this summer are due, at least in

part, to deforestation and the serious damage it has done to

vegetation along the upper reaches of the Yangtze and other

rivers,'' Xinhua said.

($1-8.3 yuan)

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Networked by Ecological Enterprises, gbarry@forests.org