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China's Year of Olympics has brought China Ominious Calamities --
Severe Snowstorms Damages China's Forests


Severe Snowstorms Damages China's Forests

The Epoch Times

Feb 26, 2008

http://en.epochtimes.com/news_images/2008-2-26-aasnww79883592.jpg
A child plays in snow at the Dahuping Village on in Yongxiu County of
Jiangxi Province, China. (China Photos/Getty Images)

China's recent snowstorms severely damaged 10 percent of the total
forests, causing direct economic losses of 57.3 billion yuan (US$8.02
billion). The extreme weather also injured or killed about 30,000
protected wild animals, according to China's state-owned media.

Zhu Lieke, deputy head of the State Forestry Administration (SFA), said
in a news conference on February 19 that roughly 18.6 million hectares
of forest from 19 snow-afflicted provinces were damaged, equaling 10
percent of the total forest area in China.

The destruction has caused huge economic losses to forest farmers who
largely rely on forestry-related work as their sole source of income
Over 9.24 million people had their income severely affected in Hunan
Province alone, according to Zhu.

Zhu estimated in the disaster-struck areas the weather would reduce the
income of forest farmers this year, and for the next three to five
years, while the gap between the supply and demand of timbers would
become larger.

Zhu pointed out, the losses sustained by the forestry industry have been
extremely rare. Over 1,781 state-owned forest farms and 1,200 nurseries
were damaged. This includes the Nanling National Forrest Park in
Guangdong Province, where more than 90 percent of the trees were destroyed.

Yin Weilun, head of a snow disaster inspection team of the SFA, recently
announced findings that the heavy snowstorms had severely damaged the
ecosystems of the forests in Hunan's Chenzhou City, causing an
ecological setback of 20 years.

Other regions were hit even worse and Yin estimated that they would need
30 to 50 years to recover. In Hunan, 177 state-owned forest farms, 99
state-owned nurseries, 114 forest industries and farms, 12 national
nature reserves, and 33 national forest parks have been heavily
affected, with economic losses exceeding 12 billion yuan ($1.68 billion).

According to experts in the team, if this spring weather doesn't revive
the majority of trees in the affected areas in time, it could, during
flood season in this summer, lead to heavy mud and landslides, increase
in water run-off and other serious forest disasters. The large number of
trees toppled in the storms could also lead to risks of forest fires.

It was reported that there had been 15 occurrences of forest fires or
fire alarms between February 13 to 18 in Hunan's Henyang City¡ªover 13.33
hectares of forest were consumed in these blazes.

Click here to read the original article in Chinese

http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/8/2/20/n2016883.htm