Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region is playing an increasingly solid role as a national ecological security shield, as it has been prioritizing eco-environment conservation in promoting economic growth, said the far western region's top leader on Tuesday.
Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xizang Autonomous Regional Committee, made the statement at a press conference in Beijing to brief on Xizang's major achievements in economic and social development over the past 60 years since the autonomous region's founding on September 9, 1965.
"We have been strictly enforcing the Law on Ecological Conservation on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, and advancing in-depth implementation of the planning for protection and construction of the national system of ecological security shields. We have brought over 50 percent of Xizang's land area under the coverage of ecological conservation red lines. We have been adhering to a holistic and systematic approach to the protection and conservation of mountain, river, forest, farmland, lake, grassland, and desert ecosystems, realizing in-depth progress of greening programs," Wang said.
The official said that Xizang has become one of the regions with the healthiest eco-environment in the world, with the people seeing income rises amid the region's greening drive.
"Especially in recent years, we have been carrying out afforestation projects on the mountains to the north and south of Lhasa, through which we have planted over one million mu (around 66,000 hectares) of forests, increasing Xizang's forest coverage rate to 12.31 percent. Xizang has created more than 440,000 green jobs, and allocated over 1.5 billion yuan (around 208 million U.S. dollars) of relevant subsidies annually. The people of Xizang have benefited from ecological construction and embarked on the road to prosperity," said the top regional official.
"The annual proportion of days with excellent or good air quality in Xizang has reached over 99.7 percent, and the water quality of all major rivers and lakes in Xizang has reached Grade III or higher. Xizang has become one of the regions with the healthiest eco-environment in the world," he said.
Xizang prioritizes eco-environment conservation: top regional official
