Integrated Farming Systems at Different Scales 471- International cooperation
China has signed several major conventions concerning protection of biodiversity
and forest management. Cooperation will be in accordance with the mechanisms
of relevant conventions and in accordance with national and local conditions, so as
to share benefits and to obtain financial and technical assistance. China will continue
to expand international, bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and wishes to enhance
exchanges and cooperation in the fields of management, scientific research, techni-
cal development and technical transfer, and manpower training.
Forestry management in the Yangtze River Basin has not only attached great
importance to regional development but also has an important influence on the
environment and development of the country as a whole. It is our sincere hope
that, with the efforts of the Chinese people and with international cooperation,
forestry in the Yangtze River Basin will be developed successfully so that it can
bring benefits to meet the needs of the present while not compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.
Other shelterbelt systems
The coastal windbreak system
The coastline of mainland China is 18,000km long, and the coastal area includes
195 prefectures/cities/counties in 11 coastal provinces and autonomous regions,
covering an area of 25.0 million ha, and involves a population about 100 million
(Ministry of Forestry of the People’s Republic of China, 1995b; Scientific and
Technological Information Center of China, 1991). The coastal area is the major
base for the resources of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, supplementary
production and fishery. But natural disasters befall it frequently and bring un-
favourable elements such as strong winds, sandstorms, high tides, droughts, water-
logging, soil salinization and soil erosion. In the 1950s, China had already started
to establish a coastal windbreak system with a combined structure of belts, tracts
and networks grouped together, mainly to break wind and to fix sand. Among
these, the backbone forest belts, as a first line of defence, have a normal width of
100–200m, with a maximum width of 500m. They ran parallel to the coastline, or
vertical to the direction of winds, shifting sands and sea waves. As tracts, belts of
forests with a high density 4500–6000 plants/ha were established on sand dunes,
sandy beaches, sand belts and along the sea coast to fix drifting sand, and their width
was usually no less than that of the drifting sand belt. Since the early 1980s, the
coastal windbreak has been gradually transformed into an eco-economic type. The
shelter windbreak combined well with timber, economic and fuel forest, to provide
a coastal windbreak system with multiple functions and high benefits. This gradually
developed into a basis for economic forests oriented to forest trade and 6.8 million
ha of shelterbelt has been planted, raising forest coverage to 27.2 per cent.