Forest resources and context of China

According to the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025, China has around 227 million hectares of forest, with a national forest coverage rate of 25.09% in 2025. This represents significant long-term growth from approximately 121.86 million hectares and 12.71% forest coverage at the time of the first National Forest Inventory (1973–1976).

China has significantly expanded its forests since the late 1970s, through successive large-scale afforestation and ecological restoration programmes. These efforts intensified from the late 1990s onwards, with policies aimed at protecting natural forests, restoring degraded land, converting cropland to forest and expanding planted forests.

Forest expansion has occurred across most provinces and regions, particularly in southern plantation zones, the Loess Plateau, the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and south-western areas affected by rocky desertification. Planted forests have played a major role in this expansion, while harvesting in natural forests has become increasingly restricted. Major species and species groups planted in China include Cunninghamia lanceolata, Populus, Eucalyptus, Larix gmelinii, Pinus massoniana, Pinus tabuliformis, Cupressus funebris, Pinus elliottii, Robinia pseudoacacia and Quercus.

Although the overall national trend is one of forest expansion, localised and sporadic forest-cover reductions still occur, mainly in connection with construction and infrastructure development, licensed industrial and mining activities, agricultural land-use adjustments, fires and pest outbreaks. Overall, forest gains and losses remain localised and patchy, with no widespread or persistent pattern of deforestation at the national level.