On April 8, the Information Office of Liaoning Provincial People’s Government held the seventh press conference of the series titled “Making Breakthroughs for Revitalization, and Striving for Decisive Achievements”, presenting the important plans, major tasks, and specific measures conducted by the Department of Natural Resources of Liaoning Province.
Focusing on building a “Beautiful Liaoning” where humanity and nature coexist in harmony, the province achieved notable progress in ecological protection and restoration in 2024. The integrated protection and restoration project for mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and deserts in the Liao River Basin (Hunhe and Taizi river systems) restored a cumulative area of 90,800 hectares. The ecological restoration projects at the Western Opencast Coal Mine of Fushun and the Liaohe Estuary Wetland were selected as national model cases for nature-based solutions. Under the “New Breakthroughs in Re-Greening Abandoned Mines” initiative, 181,000 mu were rehabilitated, exceeding the annual target by 29%. A total of 110 new green mines were established, bringing the province’s total to 414, placing Liaoning among the national leaders in both scale and growth rate.
In 2025, Liaoning will add 200 million tonnes of iron ore resources, 100,000 tonnes of boron, and 1,000 tonnes of gold. The province will continue implementing major ecological projects, including the Hunhe-Taizi River nature restoration initiative, mine restoration demonstration projects, and marine ecological protection and restoration. Liaoning will push to complete the final year of its three-year campaign to re-green abandoned mines, determined to meet the overall target of rehabilitating 437,000 mu. Efforts to expand green mine development will continue, with a goal of raising the proportion of green mines to over 75% province-wide. In addition, major ecological engineering projects such as the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program will be advanced, with decisive action to restore the degraded Horqin Sandy Land and comprehensively manage 3.3 million mu of forest-grass ecosystems and farmland suffering from desertification.
