Chinese people have planted 78 billion trees since China launched its nationwide voluntary tree planting campaign 40 years ago. So far over 17.5 billion participations have registered in the campaign across the country.

"The nationwide voluntary tree planting has effectively enriched China's forest resources. Our forest coverage rate has risen from 12 percent in the early 1980s to 23.04 percent at present. Our forest stock volume has increased from 9.028 billion cubic meters to 17.56 billion cubic meters. The campaign has made China the country with the largest increase in forest resources and the largest area of ​​planted forests," said Zhang Wei, a senior official of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

Regarding the next step of the campaign, the administration said that it will further improve related laws and regulations and encourage more participation into the campaign.

First, the Chinese government will speed up the legislation process for the campaign, providing more legal guidance for the activity.

"Second, we will build more comprehensive service platforms for voluntary tree planting to provide more approaches for residents to fulfill their obligations," said Zhang.

To facilitate participation in the campaign, the Chinese government will also accelerate the construction of various types of voluntary tree planting bases at all levels and promote new modes like "cloud tree planting", through which people can accumulate "green energy" online with low-carbon behaviors so that charity organizations will plant trees for them.

In addition, China will further popularize ecological knowledge and promote ecological civilization to raise the public awareness of forest conservation.

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