“Lucid watersand green mountains are invaluable assets.” In the past two years, Jingzhoucity has comprehensively pushed forward the afforestation work along theYangtze River. Through a series of measures, such as afforestation planning,afforestation replenishment and replacing illegal buildings with afforestation,the city has tried every means to afforest both banks of the Jingjiang Riverand build it into an ecological corridor.

At the sceneof riverbank re-greening along the Yangtze River in Sanba Village, Buhe Town,Gong'an County, a forest comes into view. The woods, which was planted in Marchthis year, adopted a colored-leaf mixed forest paired with flowering plants,creating a featured landscape forest belt.

Various kindsof trees and shrubs, such as tall and straight Zhongshan fir, Giant Redbud andItalian poplar, together with elegant cherry tree, red maple and begonia, haveturned the two banks of Yangtze River into a colorful landscape belt of plants.Walking in it, you can overlook the Yangtze River, and see the vast sky.However, in the past, the landscape here was totally different.

“Beforeconstruction, the surrounding environment was poor, and the place was overgrownwith unknown trees,” Xu Zhengqiang, Deputy Director of Gong’an NaturalResources and Planning Bureau, told the journalist. The area for this projectused to be a precast yard and private houses along the river in Sanba Village,Buhe Town. To implement the important spirit of Yangtze River protection,Gong'an County has conducted comprehensive regulation and riverbank re-greeningin some districts outside the embankment of the Buhe Section along the maindyke of Yangtze River in southern Jingzhou. The re-greening project is about2.87 km long, with a total area of 103 mu and a planned investment of 10million yuan. A total of 1,485 trees in various species like Zhongshan fir,Giant Redbud and hibiscus were planted here.

There-greening project has effectively increased the afforestation ability and theriverbank forest quality along the Buhe Section of Yangtze River in Gong’anCounty, and vigorously supported the ecological construction in this county.  

On both sidesof the Jingjiang River, a number of riverbank ecological protection andrestoration projects are under construction. In the Jiangling Qiyuan Section ofthe Jingjiang embankment, rows of newly-planted trees stand upright in the windand grow vigorously. Since the afforestation during the Spring Festival,Jiangling County, surrounding two major tasks - afforestation and re-greening alongthe Yangtze River and passage greening replenishment, has completed anafforestation area of around 7,000 mu before the end of March.

Song Wenjie,Deputy Director of Jingzhou Natural Resources and Planning Bureau, introducedthat Jingzhou city has made great progress in the afforestation fight for theprotection of the Yangtze River over the past two years. The city has accomplishedafforestation of 447,800 mu in 2019 and 2020, accounting for 120% of the totaltarget of 368,000 mu assigned by the provincial government, and increased thequality of forests by 158,900 mu, representing 102% of the total targetassigned by the provincial government.

Whileadvancing the afforestation work along the Yangtze River, Jingzhou city won thetitle of a “National Forest City” in 2019. Besides, its four counties andcities were honored as “Provincial Forest Cities”, and one town was nameda“Provincial Forest Town”, enabling the city to realize the coordinateddevelopment between economy and society and between man and nature. Currently,the city has shut down 364 wharves and removed 340, of which the re-greening of308 was fulfilled with high standards. By doing so, the ecological constructionof the Yangtze River has achieved remarkable results.