The Inner Mongolia autonomous region tops the country with forests of 248,667 sq km, an increase of 12,015 sq km since last measured, according to a recent national forest inventory.

The inventory says the region’s living wood growing stock increased 123 million cubic meters and reached 1.48 billion cubic meters, the fifth largest such stock in the country.

The inventory also says that the region’s forest coverage rate increased by 1.03 percentage points to 21.03 percent. By 2020, that rate will reach 23 percent and the living wood growing stock will go up to 1.6 billion cubic meters.

About 40 percent of the region’s sand lands will be improved and the wetlands will by then exceed 60,000 sq km.

The local government has been optimizing ecological forestry development in recent years, by planting pinus sylvestris (Scots pine) in Hulunbuir, Horqin, and the Maowusu desert.

There are shelter forests encircling deserts and a shelterbelt network protects farmlands on the Hetao Plain and Hohhot Plain.

In the northern foothills of Yinshan Mountain, an area suffering from severe erosion of wind and sand, a reserve has been established to protect the land from desertification.

The local authorities have also planted trees in the loess hilly area to conserve water and soil.

Moreover, insured forests in Inner Mongolia now cover 258,667 sq km, the largest such area in China.