About 7.467 million hectares of trees were planted across China last year in afforestation projects, a new record in the nation's decade-long effort to turn its vast barren land green. The figure is 50 percent up from that in 2001, the office of the National Greening Committee said in a report on the nation's afforestation in 2002. The report was issued on March 12, the 25th National Day for Tree-Planting. It attributed the achievements to nationwide projects to plant trees to hillside farmland, to accelerate voluntary tree-planting among the public, and to build wood belts along highways and railways. China's forestry authorities kicked off six key afforestation and conservation projects last year, including the one in which farmers are compensated with grain and cash if they plant trees instead of growing crops on hillsides, which are low-yield and vulnerable to soil erosion. Last year saw 4.13 million hectares of trees planted on hillsides and mountains, the report said. Meanwhile, 94.6 million hectares of forests along the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers and in northeast China were better protected thanks to a project focusing on the conservation of natural forests. The project was triggered by the catastrophic flooding of the Yangtze in the summer of 1998. Rampant logging was blamed as a major cause. The Chinese government invested nearly 26.5 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion) in the projects last year, the report said. About 540 million Chinese, or 42 percent of the population, participated in voluntary activities to plant 1.17 million hectares of trees last year. As highways and railways were increasingly flanked by forest belts, more urban areas were covered by trees, gardens and lawns. The average rate of forest coverage in Chinese cities reached 29.5 percent, a rise of 1.3 percentage points over 2001, the report said. The Chinese capital raised its forest coverage rate to 45.5 percent as part of the effort to host a "green Olympics" in 2008. In addition to ecological benefits, the development of forestry helped many Chinese cash in as flower and fruit growing and tourism in forested areas proved enormously profitable. However, the report warned China still had a long way to go in the field of afforestation because its ecological environment had worsened overall. The country planned to raise its forest coverage rate to 26 percent in 50 years from 16.55 percent at present. Financial Times Information Ltd - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire