Nandan rated as a national green model county

Nandan county in Hechi was recently rated as a national green model county by the National Ecological Protection and Restoration Department due to its outstanding achievements in land greening.

The county used to adopt primitive slash and burn farming methods. Coupled with disordered mining, its forest vegetation was badly damaged. In 1990, the county's forest coverage rate was only 17.2 percent.

To improve its ecological environment, Nandan has implemented a large-scale endeavor to return farmland to forests and expand afforestation.

The forest area of the county grew from 1.01 million mu (67,333.33 hectares) in 1990 to 2.83 million mu in 2016. The forest stock breadth, or the standing volume of living trees in woodlands, increased from 3.31 million cubic meters in 1990 to 9.81 million cu m in 2016. The forest coverage rate in 2016 reached 68.94 percent.

Nandan has also been striving to develop its park green spaces since 2008. The county has invested 320 million yuan ($4.52 million) in green space construction since 2015. To date, it has built up 19 green spaces, covering a total area of 89.43 hectares.

In addition, the county has advanced its ecological public welfare forest protection efforts. The area of ecological public welfare forests in the county currently stands at 2.23 million mu, accounting for 46.21 percent of the county's total forest area, which is 16 percentage points higher than the minimum standard for a national green model county.

A total of 351 million funds have been budgeted for the development of the forestry industry, such as tea-oil tree, forest tourism, and flowering plants, in the county since 2015.

Five tea-oil tree industrial demonstration bases have been established since 2015, along with 1,527 village greening projects being implemented. Two national 4A-level and three 3A-level scenic areas have also been built up.

Persimmons are reaped at Liuzhai Town in Nandan county in Hechi, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [Photo by Liang Xiaodan and Sha Yanyong/Hechi Daily]