The global area of forests has declined sharply from 7.6 billion hectares to 2.8 billion due to continuous human devastation and continues to shrink more than 15 million hectares per year. Forests in China have also been severely damaged.? Because the environmental deterioration of the earth has a “domino effect,” the preservation of China’s ecological environment is critical not only for the sustainable development of the country but also for the rest of the world.

Planting trees is a simple yet effective solution to the problem of deforestation.
In 1999, the CYDF launched its “Mother River Protection Project,” with the mission to plant large numbers of trees near the sources of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River and eventually in other environmentally threatened areas throughout the country. This project has already assisted 12 provinces in China and set up 55 programs for planting trees, covering over 1,000,000 acres.