(This text material comes from chinadaily.com.cn.For reference only.)

At the 2015 China Forest City Conference, in Anhui province, on Nov 24, the city of Ordos, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region got a “National Forest City” designation, a top award for its greening activities.

The city sits in a arid and semi-arid partof the region and suffered from encroaching desertification and soil erosion,but, after a long, hard period of work, it has a forest covering of 2.24million hectares, or just over 25 percent of its total and a vegetationcoverage rate of 42 percent in its built-up urban area, and green area percapita of almost 33 square meters.

The title of “National Forest City”  is used as the top recognition of a city’secological development and something that was included in China’s 13thFive-year Plan (2016-2020).