BEIJING: Fewer scenes of volunteers watering trees side-by-side were seen during this year’s Arbor Day. Still, provincial-level regions across China are maintaining their tree-planting momentum amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“Tree planting started relatively late this year, so we have to hurry up and make up for the lost time,” said Hu Jinping, who heads a forestry cooperative in Jing’an County, east China’s Jiangxi Province.
Hu said hard work is needed after the outbreak forced the cooperative to postpone its afforestation work, originally scheduled to start on Feb. 1, by more than a week.
The forestry bureau of Jing’an County said they planned to plant 133 hectares of trees this year. So far, 90 percent of the goal has been achieved.
“We recruited migrant workers who could not return to the cities where they have worked (due to traffic restrictions imposed during the outbreak), which not only sped up the afforestation but also helped them increase income,” said Hu Qingguo, deputy director of the bureau.
Strict quarantine rules were still in place in many parts of the country as the 42nd National Tree Planting Day falls on Thursday, but Internet-based innovations and growing environmental awareness have helped keep the tree-planting tradition alive and well.
In southwest China’s Chongqing, volunteers were instructed to keep “a safe distance” with each other when planting trees.
The municipality said by the end of February, 63 of 99 local leading forest enterprises had resumed work, and thanks to the growing ecological awareness among the public, over 220,000 locals have so far joined this year’s initiative to have planted 890,000 trees.
For public-spirited residents who could not personally join the afforestation efforts due to quarantine requirements, Internet-based innovations have offered them a new option this year.
“I participated in cloud planting, as it is difficult to go out to plant trees during the period of epidemic prevention,” said Bu Jianqiang, who just “planted” a tree on the Ant Forest project. Powered by mobile payment app Alipay, the project rewards low-carbon acts such as renting a bike or taking the bus with “energy” to “water” virtual trees, and the organizers promise to plant a real tree when a virtual tree grows up. – Agencies
