Within five years, all farmland with a slope above 25 degrees will be returned to forest

Recently, the State Forestry Administration held a press conference to brief on the situation regarding China's forest ecological development and nature conservation. Zhang Jianlong, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, stressed that through a new round of returning farmland to forest, in the course of 5 years, all farmland with a slope above 25 degrees must be retired from cultivation for tree planting and afforestation.

Zhang Jianlong said that forest ecological development must also protect natural forests, and all 2.966 billion mu of natural forest resources must be fully protected. “The mark of protection is that no commercial logging is carried out in natural forests; next year state-owned ones will be stopped, and the year after that collective and individual ones will be stopped.” Zhang Jianlong said that more than 2.7 billion mu of collective forest has all been allocated to farming households through household contracting, to be managed by the forest farmers themselves; the 10 trillion yuan in collective forest assets has been given to ordinary people through household contracting, which has roused farmers' enthusiasm for developing forestry, and the number of beneficiary households is 400 to 500 million. Zhang Jianlong believes that for forestry to develop greatly at present, supporting reforms for the collective forest tenure system must keep pace. “Giving collective forest land to farmers only gives them the means of production and clarifies property rights; only with supporting policy assistance can enthusiasm be roused and momentum be generated.”