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More Green, Less Sandstorm

March 12 is China's Tree Planting Day. And it seems the more severe Beijing's sandstorms get, the more people participate in tree planting.

For individuals, tree-planting has become one of the most popular ways to become directly involved, as millions of citizens have volunteered to help make the country greener.

Some enterprises and institutions have organized their employees to plant large numbers of trees together, or paid for an agency to plant and cultivate a greenbelt on their behalf.

At the international level, China and Japan are working together in a greening project in order to protect Beijing from the sandstorms. The goal of this 3 million yuan (US$360,000) project, sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Toyota Automobile Corporation, is to plant 10 square kilometres of trees, grass and bushes to stem the invasion of sand from Hebei Province.

Tree planting has almost become a tradition, marking the beginning of child's schooling, honouring enrolment in army service, or celebrating a wedding or birthday.

In April, the total area of human-planted trees across China exceeded 46 million hectares, ranking first in the world.