It would take at least six years for the forests in south China's Guangdong Province to recover from this winter's storm damage, forestry authorities said on Tuesday.

According to statistics from the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau, more than 10 million mu (660,000 hectares) of forests were damaged by the nation's worst winter storms in 50 years.

"It would take six years for the forests to recover and at least 20 to 30 years to grow back to what they were like, provided that 2 million mu of forests were grown each year," said Zhang Yuwen, an official with the bureau.

The booming province had experienced forestry losses of more than 7 billion yuan (about 1 billion U.S. dollars), statistics showed.

Rising temperatures and fallen trees have made it necessary to put the forest fire alert at the highest level and these conditions have added to the difficulties of restoring the forests, officials said.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 2008)