This Day, That Year: Feb 27

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Feb 27, 1982, the National Afforestation Committee was established to fight desertification and protect the environment.

An item on March 13, 1987, from China Daily showed schoolgirls planting trees in Beijing to mark the seventh National Tree-Planting Day.

During the past four decades, people from all walks of life have partici-pated in tree-planting events every year on March 12.

The government has also adopted other initiatives such as the Three-North Shelterbelt Program.

Thanks to the green campaigns, China now has the biggest man-made forests in the world.

The programs have helped increase the country's tree coverage from 12 percent in the 1970s to nearly 22 percent now.

A new study using data from NASA satellites shows that China and India are leading the increase in greening on land and concludes that the "effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries".

The study was published on Feb 11, in the journal Nature Sustainability.

The researchers found that the global green-leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China.

The country has launched a massive land-greening campaign to raise forest coverage to 23 percent by 2020, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said.

It aims to increase the forest cover to 26 percent by 2035. To achieve the ambitious goal, the country has taken a slew of measures, ranging from reforesting hillsides to creating protected grassland and nature reserves.