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Nearly 20 percent of China's land territory has turned to desertified land due to natural and human factors, and overall desertification keeps on worsening, according to the national forestry authority.

The total area of desertified land has reached 1.743 million sq.km, or 18.2 percent of the total land area of the country, and it is expanding with 3,436 sq. km per year, said Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Forestry Administration (SFA).

"The overall situation of desertification is still worsening in China, even though in some areas it has been under control," Zhou said here Monday at an event to mark the annual World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.

He took both natural and human factors, especially successive droughts in recent years, as causes of the worsening situation.

China is one of the countries in the world suffering from desertification problems in terms of reduction of arable land, degradation of ecological environment, and poverty of residents in desert areas.

China has carried out large-scale anti-desertification projects,including a decade-long forest shelterbelt project in the northwestern, northern and northeastern regions, and a new afforestation program to shelter the Beijing-Tianjin area from sandstorms.

Zhou said the two projects are vital to national desertification-control campaign since they cover more than 85 percent of the desertified land.

"China aims to basically control the expansion of desertified land by the year 2010, and to establish a shelter ecosystem in desert areas by 2050," he said.

The SFA and the National Greening Committee have called for redoubled efforts in afforestation throughout the country. Hundreds of individuals and units were given special honors here Monday for their outstanding contributions to the desertification-control campaign.