China has made achievements in integrated desertification control, with 53 per cent of the country’s treatable desertified land effectively controlled and 4.33 million hectares of desertified land reduced, making China the first country in the world to achieve “zero growth” in land degradation while reducing the area of desertified land, the State Forestry and Range Administration said at a press conference on Monday.

China is one of the most desertified countries in the world, with 1.68 million square kilometres of desertified land, accounting for 17.58 per cent of the country’s land area.

Through the organisation and implementation of a number of key projects, such as the Forest Protection Belt Programme in the three northern regions, the forest cover in the programme area in the three northern regions has increased from 12.41 per cent to 13.84 per cent, 61 per cent of the soil erosion area has been effectively controlled, and the vegetation cover of the Yellow River Basin has shifted 300 kilometres to the west.