China invested 89.8 billion yuan (13.7 bln U.S. dollars) in projects for the conservation of natural forest resources from 2011 to 2015, a government report revealed on Tuesday.

 

周二发布的一份政府工作报告显示，2011年至2015年中国已投资898亿元人民币（137亿美元）用于天然林资源的保护工程。

 

With the whopping investment, China has put 1.08 million square kilometers of natural forests under effective protection, according to the report highlighting improvement of human rights, including the environment rights. The report was released by the State Council Information Office. 

 

China's forest coverage¹ reached 21.66 percent by the end of 2015, and the national greenery coverage in urban areas had reached 40.22 percent by 2014, it said.

 

The area of established nature reserves reached 1.47 million square kilometers, accounting² for 14.84 percent of the country's total land area, it said, adding over 90 percent of the country's land ecosystems³, 89 percent of wildlife species under state protection and 86 percent of wild plant species under state protection were conserved⁴ in nature reserves. 

 

Besides, heavy metal pollution has effectively been brought under control. In 2014, the total pollutant⁵ discharge of 5 major heavy metals including lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and the metalloid element - arsenic⁶, decreased by 20 percent as compared with that in 2007.

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