China’s efforts to expand forest cover have increased the planet’s total tree canopy by an estimated 25 per cent

 In the summer of 1998, five of China’s longest rivers flooded, killing more than 3,000 people and costing the country at least 11.5 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) in economic loss. These floods were in part caused by erosion and denudation of hillsides along major rivers, all caused by the clearing of forests to make way for arable and industrial land to feed the country. Even before the devastation was cleared, China banned logging in the basins of the flood-prone Yangtze and Yellow rivers and ordered trees to be planted on hillsides, as well as on some of the less successful cropland. The result is that the amount of forest in the world has increased by 25%, enough that the difference can be seen from space.  As well as acting as a large Carbon Dioxide Sink for the countries huge industry this huge investment in tree planting is slowing down the amounts of erosion, but as we have seen from last year’s floods in China still much more work needs to be done in investing in still more tree planting. 



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