Six departments including the Forestry and Grassland Administration of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have jointly issued the Implementation Plan for the Protection and Restoration of Natural Forests in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to the region's Forestry and Grassland Administration.

On September 28, with the approval of the People's Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Forestry and Grassland Administration, the Development and Reform Commission, the Department of Finance, the Department of Human Resources and Social Security, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Inner Mongolia Regulatory Bureau of the National Financial Regulatory Administration jointly issued the plan.

The plan focuses on five tasks 鈥?zoning and layout of natural forests and public welfare forests, strengthened protection, scientific restoration, transformative development, and supporting safeguards 鈥?and specifies 14 concrete measures.

Under the plan, Inner Mongolia will innovate its control methods, management systems, and restoration models. By 2030, the region aims to complete more than 45 million mu of comprehensive forest restoration while keeping the natural forest area at 268 million mu. By 2035, it aims to complete more than 72 million mu of comprehensive forest restoration, maintain a stable natural forest area, and keep the completion rate of natural forest management and protection tasks at 100%.

Innovating control methods. To address the insufficient focus in protecting natural forests and public welfare forests, the region will for the first time designate all natural forests into key protection zones and general protection zones based on factors such as ecological location importance, natural recovery capacity, and species rarity, implementing classified management and control. Key protection zones cover 30 million mu, where projects such as national defense, major national engineering projects, and water supply and water source protection facilities may occupy land, and necessary measures to maintain ecosystem health such as pest control, forest fire prevention, and ecological corridor connectivity may be carried out. General protection zones cover 310 million mu, where, on the basis of comprehensive protection and restoration, appropriately developing under-forest economy, ecotourism, forest wellness, and other specialty industries may be permitted upon demonstration, achieving sustainable management and perpetual utilization of forest resources.

Innovating management systems. To address issues such as incomplete basic data on natural forests and public welfare forests and difficulties in fund use caused by numerous project funding categories, the region will integrate natural forest protection with public welfare forest management for unified protection. A natural forest protection and restoration database will be established, with a unified management platform and basic data. More than 30,000 management and protection responsibility zones will be designated, with management and protection agreements signed at each level under a unified system. Subsidies originally supported by central government finance for state-owned forest management and protection, social insurance in natural forest protection project areas, policy-oriented social expenditures, forest tending, and the complete cessation of commercial logging of natural forests will be consolidated into a unified forest ecological protection and restoration subsidy, with a unified compensation policy applied to protection and restoration, transformative development, and livelihood safeguards, prioritizing the bottom line of basic livelihood for employees of state-owned forestry units.

Innovating restoration models. To address issues such as low forest quality and weak ecological functions, the region will adopt a full-cycle, near-natural, multi-functional, and sustainable management approach, applying differentiated measures by zone and by forest type. Forest tending will be carried out for natural forests with unreasonable tree species composition, age, and spatial structure. Regeneration promotion will be conducted for forest stands with poor regeneration and low proportions of target tree species. Degraded forest restoration will be implemented for natural secondary forests undergoing reverse succession and declining functions. Back-up resource cultivation will be carried out for open forests, cut-over areas, and forest gaps. Stumping and rejuvenation will be applied to shrub forests with low coverage. Degraded artificial public welfare forests will be managed using near-natural models. Based on local and forest-specific conditions, 16 restoration models have been summarized, and 5 restoration demonstration sites have been established, effectively improving the quality and efficiency of natural forest restoration across the region.