By Xinhua Writer Meng Na
HAIKOU, May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Since the tsunami hit southeast Asian countries
late last year, the Chinese government and academia have begun to consider what
has to do if a tsunami with the same intensity hit China.
This week, a national forum on shelter forest planting was heldin Haikou,
capital of south China's Hainan Province. The participants decided that China
should not only depend on the construction of the earthquake and tsunami
forecast systems but also rely on the offshore shelter forests.
The monstrous tsunami on last Dec. 26, killed 174,000 people and destroyed
tens of thousands of buildings in Thailand, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.
However, Thailand's Ranong areas were almost unaffected by the tsunami, thanks
for the resistance by the luxuriant offshore mangrove forests there.
China had similar experiences. In 1996, the Leizhou peninsula, located near south
China's Hainan Province, was hit by a violent typhoon, causing economic losses
of more than 10 billion yuan. The counties of Doulun and Jinbang were
unaffected, because they were protected by a mangrove belt with width of 40 to
China has 11 coastal provinces and municipalities and they boast of China's
most economically-developed areas. In year 2004 alone, the GDP total of the 11
provinces and municipalities reached 9.45 trillion yuan, accounting for 69.3
percent of the country's total.
It is these areas that are also most frequently hit by tsunamis and
Statistics released by the State Forestry Bureau showed that China planted
3.82 million hectares of shelter forests along the coastal water over past ten
years. This increased forest coverage from 24.9 percent to 35.5 percent and
extending the country's total shelter forests length to 17,000 kilometers.
Despite the progress, China's shelter forests are still inadequate to
resist strong typhoons or tsunami,Chinese experts said. Some local governments
chopped down mangroves along the coast and destroying shelter forests for the
Statistics show that China had more than 60,000 hectares of mangroves in
1950's, but the area of mangrove forests has shrunk to 20,000 hectares
Zhou Shuxian, head of the State Forestry Bureau said at the forum that the
protection and planting of the shelter forests along the coastal water is of
great significance to the security of sovereignty and ecology. China should,
build up a luxuriant shelter forest belt along its coastline to help resist
typhoons and tsunamis. Enditem