CHINA STATE FORESTRY OFFICIAL CALLS FOR INSURANCE SYSTEM

A senior Chinese State Forestry Administration (SFA) official has called for the introduction of a forestry insurance system after revealing that the recent winter storms in China had cost the country’s forestry sector more than CNY57bn ($8bn). The SFA’s Xiao Xingwei said that some regions would experience an increase in water run-off and landslides. There was also an increased risk of forest fires if a period of dry weather followed the storms. Deputy director Zhu Lieke said that about 21m hectares of trees were damaged, 10% of China’s total forestry. An estimate 30,000 protected wild animals were killed, 1,781 state-owned forest farms and 1,200 nurseries were damaged. Although some of the damaged timber could be used to make up for some of the shortfall over the next couple of years, the government plans to increase timber imports to cover regional shortfalls.