Former Executive-Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Mr Erik Solheim, has commended China’s environmental protection and tree planting campaign.
Erik gave the commendation during a virtual awareness campaign on tree planting to encourage environmental protection in Beijing, China.
He said a beautiful picture of ecological progress could unfold globally, and that China could play a unique role in forest conservation and prevention of deforestation.
During tree-planting activity in Beijing on April 4, President Xi Jinping told students around him to encourage children to plant trees, when they become parents someday.
As a man who grew up in Beijing, he had memories about Chinese scholar trees, Ebenaceae, malus spectabilis, pomegranate trees and jujubes always seen in traditional courtyard houses in the Chinese capital.
Afforestation has become a belief passed from generation after generation in China; it awakens people’s awareness for environmental protection and nurtures China’s green development philosophy.
Through tree planting, China has optimized its environment, greened its mountains and kept people’s nostalgia, laying a solid foundation for achieving sustainable development, and inheriting Chinese civilisation.
Tree planting is a tradition, an obligation and part of daily life of Chinese people, it will create not only lucid waters and lush mountains, but invaluable assets, making China even more beautiful.
He said that based on official statistics, China had added over 22 million hectares of forest in the past 10 years and contributed a quarter of global new forest area, as the highest globally.
In the country, tree planting is a matter of everyone, from national leaders to citizens. The Chinese people have always placed huge importance on tree planting.
It symbolises revitalisation, sustainable development and inheritance of Chinese civilisation.
The Chinese government has even introduced a policy that awards every Chinese citizen who plants three to five trees a year with an honorary certificate.
