Senior Chinese leaders including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao joined 2 million people in Beijing
for voluntary tree planting on Sunday.
Other senior Chinese Communist Party and government leaders,
including Wu Bangguo, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong, Wu Guanzheng and Luo Gan, also took part in Sunday's activity at
the city's Olympic Forest Park to mark the 23rd tree-planting day
of the capital, which falls on April 1.
The Beijing municipal government plans to plant 510,000 trees in
the Olympic Forest Park, located on the north of the Main Stadium
of 2008 Olympic Games. Currently, more than
330,000 trees have been planted there.
Hu Jintao and other senior leaders have planted trees at the
park on many occasions in recent years.
Leading officials from some central government ministries and
Beijing municipal departments as well as local residents, totaling
2 million people, also planted trees at several locations of
Beijing on Sunday.
According to a government decision on tree planting issued in
1981, Chinese citizens aged from 11 to 55 are required to plant
three to five trees every year, aiming to increase China's forest
coverage rate.
In 2006, about 550 million Chinese planted 2.16 billion trees in
China, statistics from State Forestry Administration (SFA)
show.
(Xinhua News Agency April 1, 2007)
