Meng Qinglong, a planning official with the government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said the region's investment in ecological construction was among the highest in China.

In 2000, the central government pledged 1.75 billion yuan for ecological construction, the second highest amount for a Chinese region.

In 2001, the figure jumped to the top with a pledged investment of two billion yuan.

So far this year, confirmed state investment had exceeded two billion yuan.

The money would be mainly spent on seven projects involving the protection of pastures and forests, conversion of farmland to pastures and forests, control of major degraded areas directly threatening Beijing, construction of major shelter belts, and soil conservation, said Gao Xilin, head of the regional forestry authority.

The combined effects of nature and decades of destructive human activity have led to a worsening ecological environment in Inner Mongolia.

Official figures show that about 60 percent of the region's 1.18 million square kilometers of land suffer desertification, and that area is increasing by 800 square kilometers a year.

As a result, most of the region's rivers and lakes have dried up. Large stretches of pasture have become desert and sandstorms are more frequent.

"If the ecological environment of Inner Mongolia is not improved, the whole northern part of China, particularly Beijing, is doomed to have a spring haunted by sandstorms," said Yang Wenbi, deputy head of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Forestry Sciences.

As part of the new program, the regional government has begun relocating residents out of areas where the natural environment is too poor, allowing the environment to recover and the residents to earn a better standard of living.

Hao Yidong, deputy chairman of the regional government, said about 200,000 such residents would be relocated to areas with better production and living conditions over the next decade.

The government's initiative to convert infertile farmland to forest and pasture has proved to be the most effective means of environmental improvement in Inner Mongolia and in other regions.

Government subsidies in the form of cash and grain have won the backing of farmers for the project.

In Inner Mongolia, the area of converted farmland had exceeded the government quota for several consecutive years, officials said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2002)