Hebei iron ore miners are ripping up trees to clear the way for lucrative expansion, the Beijing media reports.
In Longhua, a county 200km northeast of the capital, ore mines built in a national reserve were expanding rapidly, destroying the forest with blasting and debris, the Beijing News reported yesterday.
The woods are part of the Jing-Jin programme, a 56 billion yuan government effort to create nearly 5 million hectares of forest. Longhua is a major source of the sand and dust storms that hit the capital in the spring. Each year, the government gives the county more than 20 million yuan to maintain its forests, many of which are newly planted.
The area is also rich in iron-bearing rocks and since 2000, the county authorities have worked to attract investors in the mines.
Twenty-three iron ore mines have opened in forest reserves in Hanmaying township, spreading across nearly 700 hectares of the woodland.
Nearly half of the county government's income came from taxes paid by the mines, the report said. In Longhua, every mine was increasing output and many were expanding illegally because of soaring iron ore prices, which had tripled in just a few years.