Typhoons that hit China's coastal areas this summer and the aftermath of the Asian tsunami last December have prompted forestry experts to consider building strong defenses to lessen the effects of disasters.

With coastline stretching more than 18,000 kilometers from Guangxi to Liaoning, China has suffered billions of US dollars in losses every year as a result of frequent seaborne calamities.

Each year the total surpasses 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion), according to the State Forestry Administration (SFA).

Plan for future

"Although humankind is still unable to accurately forecast disasters like tsunamis and tidal storms today, we can build coastal shelter belts to mitigate the damage along our coastlines," Zhou Shengxian, head of the SFA, said.

Research indicates a network of coastal defenses, especially a belt of mangroves, is capable of absorbing 30 to 40 percent of the total force of a tsunami or typhoon and ensuing waves before they swirl over inhabited areas by the shore.

The monstrous tsunami of December 26 last year killed 174,000 people and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings in Thailand, Indonesia, India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

However, Thailand's Ranong areas were almost unaffected by the tsunami, thanks to the resistance provided by luxuriant offshore mangrove forests.

From India to Indonesia we have heard stories from fishermen who took shelter behind mangrove forests and survived.

Nearly 11,000 people died in India, mostly in Tamil Nadu state where tens of thousands of fishermen have to live in relief camps. But in Pichavaram covered by 900 hectares of mangrove forests local residents continue to fish just as they did before the tsunami.

Some 3,000 fishing families in the region depend on mangroves, harvesting around 230 tons of prawns, fish and crabs annually.

"Here, there has been very little impact," S. Ramamurthy, the official in charge of the forests was quoted as saying in a report by the newspaper the Australian.

A similar story

In 1996, the Leizhou Peninsula, located near south China's Hainan Province, was hit by a violent typhoon, incurring economic losses of more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion). The counties of Doulun and Jinbang were unaffected because they were sheltered by a mangrove belt that measures 40 to 160 meters across.

An important lesson that can be learned in the wake of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean is that one of the best defences against natural disasters is nature itself, experts say.

China's coastline measures 18,340 kilometers from Bohai Bay in the north to Beibu Bay in the south, with eight coastal provinces, two municipalities and one autonomous region Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan.

They boast the country's most economically developed areas. In 2004 alone, the gross domestic product of these regions reached 9.45 trillion yuan (US$1.17 trillion), accounting for about 70 percent of China's total.

But it is also these areas that are most frequently hit by typhoons and tsunamis.

On average, between 1924 and 2004, 6.9 typhoons have hit China every year, with storm tides occurring once in every three or four years.

In the past decade the country has incurred 213.4 billion yuan (US$26.2 billion) in direct economic losses because of storm tides and other ensuing natural disasters.

Picturing defenses

China is expected to fully enhance the construction of its coastal belt of shelter woods from 2005 to 2010 so as to improve protection against typhoons, storm tides, tsunamis and other ensuing catastrophic consequences.

Zhou and his team already have a picture in their minds of the network of coastal shelter forests.

The network, they say, should be composed of windbreaks, high forest with firmly-rooted trees, water conservation forest and farmland shelter-forest.

"It should be a green system engineered to include the construction of primary coastal shelter forest, mangroves, farmland shelter belt, urban greening, barren mountain afforestation and the protection of littoral wetland," Zhou said.

In the future, such a system would not only be capable of withstanding disasters and ensuring the suitability of the economy but would also help rehabilitate coastal ecosystems, safeguard residents and improve human habitats.

Over the past decade, statistics released by the SFA have shown China planted 3.82 million hectares of shelter forests along coastal waters.

This increased forest coverage from 24.9 per cent to 35.5 percent and extended the country's primary shelter forest length to 17,000 kilometers or 94 percent of the total planned area.

Problems on the way

Despite the progress, China's shelter forests are still unable to resist devastating typhoons and tsunamis, experts say.

A shortage of funds is one of the major challenges holding back the full completion of the proposed shelter forest.

"Today, the cost of afforestation per mu (0.06 hectare) would be up to 600 yuan (US$73) on barren mountainous areas or saline alkali soil," Zhou said, adding the present State subsidies have only accounted for 10 per cent of the cost.

To ensure the success of China's coastal shelter belt, the SFA hopes the coastal afforestation program can be listed in the country's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) with support from government investment.

It is also important to improve the quality of the existing trees and replace the ageing ones.

"China's existing coastal forest shelter belt cannot meet our goal of forming an integrated defense system," Zhou said.

The primary "coastal green great wall" has not been fully completed, particularly along some muddy and sandy coasts and in shallows-tidal-flat areas and alkali flats where planting trees is very difficult.

The wall contains a gap stretching 3,800 kilometers with many ageing trees that must be replaced in many sections.

"Some carob trees which were planted when I was a little boy are still standing there. But they are too old to withstand strong winds nowadays," complained 58-year-old Zhao Xipeng, a forestry official at Wafangdian in Liaoning Province.

"Much of China's existing forest along the coastlines is ageing after being lashed by typhoons or battered by plant diseases," experts at the SFA said.

(China Daily September 21, 2005)