Beijing residents, especially those with respiratory illness and pollen hypersensitivity, will be delighted to enjoy a more pleasant spring this year, as a project is well under way to eventually substitute one million female poplars with male ones and other species of trees.  

According to the municipal forestry bureau, there are about 120 million trees in the plain area of Beijing, and 70 percent are willows and poplars. Of them, female poplars usually emit a great amount of catkins in spring, blurring the landscape of the city and stimulating residents' noses, eyes and throats.

Beijing started massive tree planting in the 1960s. Most of the trees planted then are more than 30 years old. In general, female poplars of more than 20 years old, with dried crowns and their leaves falling earlier in autumn, begin to emit more and more catkins.

To this end, the Beijing government launched a project in 2002 to gradually fell its old trees and substitute them with younger ones, including male poplars that do not emit catkins.

This spring the project will have 200,000 female poplars replaced in Beijing, the forestry bureau said.

(Xinhua New Agency April 13, 2004)