China View: Beijing’s Afforestation Efforts Aim to Address Environmental Loss
In March of 2025, the National Afforestation Commission released a report on China’s afforestation progress. According to the document, China completed the restoration of 4 million hectares and improved 3 million hectares of land by planting grass. Rapid urbanization, industrialization, and timber harvesting are the major contributors to deforestation and tree loss. Deforestation is a key cause of desertification, which causes lush environments and ecosystems to become more barren.
This continues to be a major problem in the region because more than 30% of the country is prone to desertification. In response to these issues, the government has identified afforestation as the primary solution. Afforestation refers to forest planting and seeding areas that previously were not classified as forests. In 2014, the country also reclaimed 3 million hectares of land affected by soil erosion.
Over the past decade, the government has significantly increased its afforestation efforts, which has helped to combat desertification and mitigate climate change. It is reported that the government allocated 32 billion yuan ($4.4 billion) to these efforts, which resulted in the restoration of more than 3.8 million hectares of land in vulnerable regions in 2024. The government has also funded a total of 176 projects on ecological protection and restoration in key regions.
However, transforming a forest is a challenging process requiring “selective felling, replacement, planting, and natural renewal”. There are concerns that the government’s initiatives emphasize forest coverage while neglecting other crucial aspects, such as diversity of tree species. There are also concerns about the coordination of these afforestation campaigns, which may impact the success of the projects. Do these programs help promote longstanding change to the environment?
In the early stage of the People’s Republic of China, rapid industrialization and urbanization were prioritized while forest conservation and protection were widely disregarded. During these initial phases, timber was in high demand. As a result, timber production was the primary goal of forest management during this period and natural forests were the primary target for timber harvesting, which led to massive deforestation.
In 1978, the government launched the Great Green Wall campaign to combat desertification and the spread of the Gobi Desert through the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program. This created a 2,800 mile of forest with millions of trees along the northern border next to the desert. In the 1980s, the government implemented a series of major ecological projects aimed at protecting forests, such as preventing soil erosion and desertification. During this period, timber harvesting also started to slowdown.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, forest cover increased rapidly. Improving environmental conditions was also prioritized over timber production, which led to a rapid rise in forest. In 1998, a new national forest policy was also adopted and aimed to promote sustainable management of forest resources and environmental protection. The policy was implemented with significant investments and the government started six major forest projects with a total investment of over 700 billion yuan (approximately US$85 billion) by 2010. A series of large afforestation campaigns, including the Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) were initiated by the government at the end of the 1990s to transform croplands into forests by planting trees, shrubs, and grass.
The government has implemented considerable afforestation engineering programs in recent years and has invested more than $100 billion in the past decade alone. The Shandong Ecological Afforestation Project, for example, helped to develop around 786,000 hectares of ecological afforestation between 2010 and 2016. The project helped plant trees and shrubs on 36,897 hectares of highly degraded hillsides and on 30,018 hectares of saline coastal areas.
While domestic demand for timber remains high, the government has made efforts to reduce pressures on natural forests through strict bans on logging in primary forests and a massive expansion of its forest reserves. To improve afforestation efforts, the government also designated March 12 as National Tree Planting Day in 1979 and launched a nationwide voluntary tree-planting campaign in 1981. The public’s participation has significantly contributed to the government tree planting campaigns and programs.
From 1982 to 2021, Chinese citizens voluntarily planted approximately 78 billion trees across the country. Citizens are also encouraged to adopt or nurture trees, donate money, and conduct volunteer work related to trees. By the end of May 2022, more than 550 million people had participated in the project to plant over 200 million trees. These projects have also been successful in improving environmental conditions. “Improvement of the vegetation conditions in the Mu Us Desert is related to the implementation of a series of desertification control projects, such as the ‘conversion of farmland to forest’ project, grazing and logging being made illegal”. The government also subsidizes farmers to plant trees, restricts animal farming, and facilitates crop production.
The government’s efforts to address desertification and promote afforestation have been widely successful. However, many of these ecological projects are criticized for neglecting trees once they have been planted, which can further exacerbate land degradation. The planting of trees that are not native to the areas in which they are planted can also damage the surrounding ecosystems by heightening water scarcity. The species of tree is fundamental to the long-term success and effectiveness of afforestation projects. Native trees are more favorable because they provide benefits to local wildlife and are suited to growing in the soil.
In the Loess Plateau of China, which has one of the most severe cases of soil erosion in the world, the introduction of exotic tree species and extensive tree planting projects had had a negative effect on soil moisture content in the region. Instead of helping promote sustainable growth in the region, these programs further endangered the sustainability of the local ecosystem. The government has begun to adapt its approach to afforestation in more recent projects such as the Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control Project, which calls for “85% of the dedicated land to be given over to natural forestation, an approach that cordons off degraded land and allows vegetation to grow back naturally”.
