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China Strives to Protect Trees of Cretaceous Period CHONGQING, April 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Government plans to spend 70 million yuan (8.43 million U.S. dollars) in the coming 10 years to protect tree species that flourished on earth 10 million years ago. The arborvitae trees (thuja sutchuenensis franch) of the Cretaceous period were rediscovered by Chinese forestry experts in southwest China after they had disappeared from the region for more than 100 years. The group of arborvitae trees were found in 1999 in an area of 20 ha within the Daba Mountain Nature Reserve of Chongqing, an area said to be the only home to the most rare and precious plant in the world. Experts estimated that this group of wild arborvitae trees are 500 to 600 years old. The rare plant was first discovered by P. Farges, a French missionary, at the southeast part of the Daba Mountain area in 1892. In the following 100 years, many people had gone to the area and none of them had ever seen the plant again. The tree was put on the red list of endangered species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 1998, saying it has disappeared in China. Fan Zongqiang, an official with the Chongqing Municipal Forestry Bureau, said that to better protect the rare trees, China will strengthen its scientific research and exert greater efforts to improve local ecological conditions. Applications for promoting the Daba Mountain nature reserve to a state-level protection zone, where a dozen kinds of rare animals and plants live, has been handed over to department concerned for approval, according to Fan. At the same time, the government bans anybody from stealing the fruits of the trees and has built an anti-fire shelter circling the trees by 3,000 hectares in area. It is learned that China has set about building a 136,000 hectare nature reserve in the area and there are plans to establish a research center, an information data bank, a meteorological observatory and an ecological monitoring station, to study the ecological characteristics of the rare plants and animals in the area. The measures will serve the purpose of introducing and reproducing all the rare species in the region, sources said.