Beijing should strengthen its management of the city's green belts, according to an article in Economic Daily. An excerpt follows:

For many years the Beijing municipal government has failed to realized the goals of green belt management proposed in its urban planning framework.

Take the green belt construction in the city's downtown area as an example. In 1958, urban planners held that there should be 300 square kilometres of green belt among the 600 square kilometres in the planned downtown area.

In 1982, the downtown area was increased to 750 square kilometres in a new proposal, while the green belt acreage shrank to 260 square kilometres. In 1993, the planned downtown area had grown to 1,040 square kilometres but the green belt acreage was proposed to be at 240 square kilometres.

The diminishing number of green belts in Beijing has directly contributed to the vicious cycle of its deteriorating ecological system and affected the capital city's air quality.

Due to a lack of effective control, the urban planning for marking out green belt space could not be effectively carried out.

In the bordering areas between the rural and urban Beijing, unauthorized buildings are rampant and these areas are teeming with a sizable migrant population. All these have led to the reduction of green-belt land.

More efforts need to be urgently made to ensure that Beijing can have more green belts as the city continues to grow.

In 2000, Beijing started the construction of its first green isolation belt. And in 2002, to deal with the shrinking of green areas between the downtown and suburban areas, it was agreed that green areas should account for 70 per cent of the total land being used for construction and about 30 per cent of areas should be planted with grass and trees.

Meanwhile, planning and management should be strengthened.

In Beijing's old downtown area of 62 square kilometres, some buildings should be demolished and greened up in a gradual way to alleviate the heavy burdens of too many urban functions. Stricter measures should be taken to prevent the shrinking of green belts by urban construction.

And in suburban areas, large green areas should be built up and developed into a national park taking cultural heritage into account.