Beijing's Daxing district, where increasing leafiness has been evident for some time, will continue to drive its greening construction according to a local gardening and greening authority speaking at a press conference of the district's two sessions on Jan 6.

The Xihongmen Ecological Park in Daxing district opened its door in November 2020. [Photo/ IC photo]

Daxing made new advances in afforestation during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period with newly created forests totaling 4,000 hectares. As of the end of 2020 it had over 6,600 hectares of manmade forest, with an urban greening coverage of 46.89 percent.

Seven green corridors have been built close to the airport expressway and 22 parks are now scattered across the district, further improving landscape quality.

Daxing opened a forest park in its Jiugong town just before the the Labor Day holiday in May 2020. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

According to the meeting, more efforts will be made to improve the local environment by carbon offsets, cutting carbon intensity through afforestation.

In response to the State's call to peak the emissions, the district plans to afforest more than 1,300 hectares and increase the urban greening coverage above 47 percent this year. Meanwhile, it will focus on rural areas' green resources and restore natural wetland systems.

The district has also set a five-year goal to lift urban greening coverage to 47.51 percent, and is striving to become a national-level forest cluster.