Recent ecological governance data reveal that China is reshaping its national ecological map through an unprecedented afforestation campaign—a forty-year-long environmental reform that is steadily bolstering its influence in global climate governance.
According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Tuesday, China completed land greening over 100 million mu (approximately 67,000 square kilometers) in 2024—equivalent to twice the area of Belgium. Of this, afforestation covered 66.69 million mu, grassland improvement 48.36 million mu, and, for the first time, the scale of sustainable forest management exceeded the 10-million-mu threshold.
These figures underscore the cumulative achievement of 1.16 billion mu of land greening since 2013, establishing China as the nation with the fastest and largest afforestation efforts in modern history.
Official statistics further indicate that China’s forest coverage has surpassed 25%, with a forest stock volume reaching 20 billion cubic meters, while overall grassland vegetation coverage remains above 50% and the area of man-made forests continues to lead globally.
At the core of this green revolution is the urgent need to confront severe ecological challenges. In the 1980s, desertified land in China spanned 2.57 million square kilometers—accounting for 26.8% of the nation’s total land area—with 1.68 million square kilometers of severely desertified land, an area larger than the combined territories of France, Germany, and Poland. Through innovative legislative measures—including the Law of Prevention and Control of Desertification and the Yellow River Protection Law—China has built what is considered the world’s most comprehensive ecological legal framework.
The "Three-North" Shelterbelt Program, recognized as the largest ecological restoration project in human history, increased forest coverage in its target region from 12.4% to 13.8%. Even more remarkable is the westward advance of the vegetative belt in the Yellow River basin by 300 kilometers, effectively creating a new ecological barrier of moderate scale. Current data indicate that China has effectively controlled desertification over 118 million mu of land.
China’s substantial progress in ecological governance is reshaping the global climate political landscape. As developed nations repeatedly fall short on climate finance commitments, the carbon sink growth achieved through China’s large-scale land greening offers tangible support for the goals of the Paris Agreement. More profoundly, China’s integration of ecological governance into its core national strategy provides a new paradigm for sustainable development, one that is particularly instructive for countries in the Global South.