China’s eco-civilization plan calls for 23% of the country to be covered in forest by 2020

China has announced, via a United Nations report, that it will be covering nearly a quarter of the country with forests by 2020.  The plan is to turn China into an "ecological civilization" and function as a model for future building projects.

“The outdated view that man can conquer nature and ignore the bearing capacity of resources and the environment should be completely abandoned,” said Zhu Guangyao, executive vice president of the Chinese Ecological Civilization Research and Promotion Association. “Conscientious efforts should be made to live in harmony with nature, allowing for a new approach to modernization characterized by such co-existence.”

The report also indicated that by 2020 the country plans on cutting water consumption by 23 percent, energy consumption by 15 percent and carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 18 percent.

There is also action to restore 35 percent of the natural shorelines, increase prairie vegetation coverage by 56 percent and reclaim more than half of reclaimable desert in the country.