03/12/08 -- Yesterday, the Yunnan Forestry Department held a media conference on the "Yunnan Province 'Sabre 2008' Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Tibet Forest Vegetation Joint Quarantine Implementation Action Program," giving a report on the status of Yunnan Province's efforts to prevent incursions of invasive species. It is reported that last year over thirty counties in Yunnan implemented targeted control programs for the bark beetle, which is causing a severe degree of harm. The prevention area covers over 800,000 mu (53,000 ha), and the program has brought about initial containment of the bark beetle infestation.

In the past several years, through four measures of erecting forest protection infrastructure, establishing a monitoring and alert network, actively and comprehensively controlling harmful organisms, and strengthening quarantine implementation, Yunnan has achieved effective results in harmful species prevention across the province.

Lately, within the province have been established 127 "National Level Forest Protection Standard Stations," 18 "National Level Quarantine-Free Seedling Bases," and 35 "National Level Central Observation Points," and finished implementing construction work for 35 provincial level observation points. The province has begun implementing automatization of the conveyance of observation figures and has started to form a five-level (provincial, prefectural, county, township, village) monitoring network. Last year 718 disaster warning reports were issued within the province, and the precision rate of observations reached 93.7%. Since 2005, Yunnan has waged an all-out war against borer-type pests like the the bark beetle and pine bark weevil. Last year targeted control was implemented in thirty counties (cities, districts) with a prevention area covering over 800,000 mu (53,000 ha). The program has brought about initial containment of the bark beetle infestation. In the past several years, Yunnan has implemented a comprehensive quarantine and registration system, optimized quarantine execution methods, and further standardized woodland plant quarantine management.

[Full Article]

*The Yunnan Daily, posted at Sina.com

By Li Huimin (Chuncheng Evening News)

--Translated by John A. Zinda

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http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-03-12/100313561272s.shtml