The town of Dabaideng, Yanggao county of Shanxi province has been named a "National Advanced Ecological Civilization" town at a 4th National Ecological Civilization Construction and Development Conference, the only town in Shanxi to get the honor, Shanxi Daily reported recently.

Dabaideng is where Chairman Mao Zedong, praised it as a typical site of advanced soil and water conservation and, over the past several decades, people living there have tried to return some of the farmland to forests or grasslands, in line with government policies for Beijing and Tianjin to control sandstorms, apparently with a good affect.

The town's forest area is now 2-square-kilometers, for a coverage rate of 86.7 percent, and an increase of 1.2 percent per year over a 10-year period.

Dabaideng also has an ecology strategy with infrastructure construction and urban and rural cleaning, providing a good basis for an ecology industry with vegetables, corn, pigs and cows.

The conference announced 30 advanced ecological civilization towns for its list.

Edited by Zhou Yuanyuan and Roger Bradshaw