The story appears on

Page A6

June 15, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeNation

Spending improves environment and people鈥檚 lives

CHINA spent 89.8 billion yuan (US$13.6 billion) on forest conservation projects between 2011 to 2015, according to a government report released yesterday.

The report on human rights said the investment had put 1.08 million square kilometers of natural forest under effective protection.

China’s forest coverage had reached 21.66 percent by the end of 2015, and greenery coverage in urban areas had reached 40.22 percent by 2014, it said.

Established nature reserves reached 1.47 million square kilometers, accounting for 14.84 percent of the country’s total land area, it said, adding that over 90 percent of the country’s land ecosystems, 89 percent of wildlife species under state protection and 86 percent of protected wild plant species were in nature reserves.

Heavy metal pollution had been brought under control, the report said. In 2014, the total pollutant discharge of five major heavy metals — lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and the metalloid element arsenic — decreased by 20 percent compared to 2007.

The report also said 97.1 percent of drinking water from centralized sources in 338 cities met quality standards last year.

Efforts to control air quality had been given a boost with an amendment to the law on air pollution prevention and control that made improving atmospheric quality the goal, and emphasized government responsibilities and improved measures to control air pollution.

Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty in rural areas was reduced by 66.63 million between 2012 and 2015, the report said. Poverty alleviation projects covering 30,000 villages had been implemented, with an average of 4.8 million yuan spent on each village.

During the same period, the State Development and Reform Commission allocated 21 billion yuan for the relocation of impoverished residents, with another 200 billion yuan in local government input. About 8 million people had been relocated.

The central government had also earmarked 771.7 billion yuan for affordable housing.

In the past four years, more than 50 million urban jobs had been created and the registered urban unemployment rate kept within 4.1 percent, it said.


 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend