A news conference is held in Changchun, to report on Jilin's significant green achievements. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Northeast China's Jilin province reported significant progress in its moves to protect its environment and go greener, at a news conference held on June 21 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

It is widely believed that high-quality rural domestic garbage treatment and domestic sewage treatment is a vital part of effective pollution prevention and control.

By establishing strong technical support – as well as operations management and protection and additional supervision and management systems – Jilin has reportedly made significant progress in its rural environment sanitation.

By the end of 2020, Jilin had installed sewage treatment facilities in 128 towns, with a total investment of 6.3 billion yuan ($975 million). A supporting pipeline network of 1,121 kilometers was constructed, which handles 400,000 metric tons of sewage daily.

Lush natural forests photographed under the blue sky in Jilin province [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In recent years, the province has established an ecological security program, strengthened the control of land and space use and launched the Beautiful Jilin campaign. A provincial-level land and space blueprint has basically been completed.

Jilin is rolling out environmental protection and restoration projects for the mountains, water, forests, fields, lakes and grasses of the Changbai Mountains, Liaohe River and Chagan Lake and has completed 15 national environmental performance indicator tests so far.

It has established a new model for mine restorations with government-led policy support, social participation and market-oriented operations.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the proportion of good air days reached 89.8 percent in the province, while PM2.5 air pollutant levels dropped to 31 micrograms and the proportion of good surface water bodies reached 83.3 percent.

During the period, the province completed 9.45 million mu (630,000 hectares) of afforestation and greening, 18.3 million mu of forest tending, 1.67 million mu of desertified land treatment, 3.5 million mu of grassland restoration and 675,000 mu of remedial work on degraded wetland.

Before the end of June, there will be a meeting to implement the deployment of forest chiefs in Jilin.

The province is expected to complete the introduction of the forest chief system in all cities and counties before the end of the year.