Hebei fights for blue skies, lucid waters

Hebei province in North China has been fully adhering to the central government’s guidelines to govern the local eco-system by adhering to the “ecology first” principle and green development. The province’s ecological construction has been moving forward at an unprecedented pace.

Zhangjiakou, for example, has planted 13.17 million mu (878,000 hectares) of forest, boosting its forest coverage rate to 50 percent, up from 39 percent in 2016.

In 2021, Hebei’s comprehensive vegetation coverage rate in prairies topped 73.5 percent, and 2,238.77 square kilometers of land suffering from water and soil erosion has been dealt with.

Last September, Saihanba forest farm won the Land for Life Award of the United Nations. Responding to the central government’s call to reach the dual-carbon goals – to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve carbon neutrality – Hebei has registered a 5-percent drop in energy consumption and a 5.8-percent drop in carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP.

Listing all its cities as pilot zones for the clean heating program in winter, Hebei currently has 12.97 million households with access to clean energies, which has largely improved the air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, according to experts.