464 Modern Agricultural Reforms
protective forest system was designed. This system integrates protective forest with
cash crops, fuel wood, timber and other forest with specific purpose species. In the
general plan of afforestation, arbour trees, shrubs and grass are combined. The
coniferous and broad-leaved trees, deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants, fast-
growing and slow-growing plants, supplement each other to form an integrated
system with a great variety of plant species and multiple layers (Investigation and
Research Team of Sichuan Forestry Society, 1990). This is a huge forestry ecologi-
cal engineering project, covering 13 provinces/autonomous regions, 645 counties,
and with a total area of 4,06 × 10^6 km^2. The total area for afforestation is about 20
× 10^7 ha. It is proposed that the areas of afforestation will consist of 1.21 × 10^7 ha
between 1989 and 2000; 1.90 × 10^6 ha between 2011 and 2050. After completion
of the project, the forest coverage will be raised to 45 per cent.
The Yangtze River protective forest system may be divided into six eco-
economic zones: the Jingsha River watershed on the western plateau of Yunnan
and Sichuan Provinces, the Hanshui River watershed in the Qingling Range–
Dabashan mountainous area, the Jialing River watershed in the Sichuan Basin, the
Wujiang River watershed on the West Guizhou plateau, the Yangtze Trunk River
watershed in mountainous areas of Sichuan and Hubei Provinces, and water systems
of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake in hilly areas of Hunan and Jiangxi Provinces.
In the upper reaches of the rivers running across high mountains in western
Sichuan Province, north-western Yunnan Province and the highlands of the north-
ern and south-western edges of the Sichuan Basin and Qinling–Dabashan Moun-
tains, special protective forest systems for soil and water conservation, in
combination with timber production forests, should be initiated. The forest of
multiple purpose use, including soil conservation, fuelwood, economic and shel-
terbelt forest networks, should be established in hilly areas of the Sichuan Basin. A
forest system made up of timber, economic, and soil and water conservation forests
should be undertaken in the mountainous areas of the Wujiang watershed. In the
Dongting and Poyang Lake region and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River,
bank protective and economic forest networks are the key types for protective for-
est construction.
The distribution and layout of different kinds of forests should be based on the
concrete conditions. Taking the hilly areas of the middle and upper reaches of the
Yangtze River as an example, the general layout of its protective forest system is as
follows: water and soil conserving forests on the top of the hills and on the slopes,
economic forest belts serving to conserve soil and protect earth banks between
farmland, and farmland protection forest networks between hills and in the valleys
and plains. This arrangement provides step-like forest protective networks which
run from hill tops to valley lands, intercepting water and conserving soil at differ-
ent levels. This provides a spatial pattern of water and soil conserving forest in hilly
areas which combines protective and productive functions in the agroforestry sys-
tem.
In general, gentle slopes of less than 10° gradient and valleys where soil erosion
is infrequent are suitable for growing food or cash crops. Slopes of 10–20° gradient