China will work towards increasing its woodland coverage in 70 percent of the cities nationwide which would mean per capita public land under vegetation reaching eight square meters.

Efforts will also be made to increase the country's overall forest coverage to 20 percent, to bring half of its natural wetlands and 90 percent of key wildlife species under protection in 2010, Jia Zhibang, director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced at a press conference Monday.

Jia said the total forestry output value would reach 1,200 billion yuan (US$149.1 billion) in 2010. China posted growth in output value every year from 2001 to 2005 -- reaching more than 700 billion yuan (US$87.0 billion) in 2005 he added.

China planted more than 12 billion trees over 32 million hectares in the 2001-2005 period with the forest coverage rising to the current 18.21 percent from a figure of 16.55 percent. A total of 2.75 billion volunteers participated in tree planting in the five-year period.

Moreover, China's desert areas had shrunk by an average 1,283 square kilometers annually in recent years. This marked a reverse for the first time in the period since 1949 when China reported 'desert area expanded by an average of 3,436 square kilometers annually up to the end of last century.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2006)