Bird's-eye view of a forest in Qingyuan county, Lishui, Zhejiang province [Photo/ WeChat account: qynews2008]

Public welfare forests above provincial level in Qingyuan county, Lishui, Zhejiang province, brought ecological benefits worth 15.1 billion yuan ($2.14 billion) in 2019, with an average of 160,560 yuan per hectare, double that of 2015.

In five years, the county's public welfare forest area increased by 9,333 hectares. In 2019, the county's public welfare forest area reached 94,053 hectares, accounting for 49.56 percent of the county's land area. Among them, natural forests accounted for 73 percent.

Qingyuan county has strengthened the protection and management of public welfare forests in recent years. At the same time, pledged loans for the limited use of public welfare forests have been launched, giving a strong boost to the development of forestry finance, and over 20 million yuan in limited use loans for public welfare forests have been issued in total.

"Since the implementation of the compensation mechanism for forest ecological benefits, Qingyuan county has released 430 million yuan in forest ecological compensation funds, benefiting 22,000 households," said Wu Weihua, deputy director of the county's ecological forestry development center.