It is estimated that only 1.3 percent of the total land area is covered by rainforest and monsoon forest, but these land cover types exist. On a north to south axis, the variety of forest land cover types include tropical, subtropical, temperate and boreal forests. Species richness is quite high. China claims 30,000 species of higher plants including 7,000 tree species. Thus, over much of the land area, species diversity may be much lower than the aggregate numbers suggest.
China has the largest number of wildlife species of any country in the world.
This may be due in part to the fact that China is the only country in which an unbroken connection between tropical, subtropical, temperate and boreal forests occurs. Many of the species are rare and only found in China Deforestation, or the uncompensated harvesting of timber, is a continuing problem in China. Excluding the illegal cut, timber harvesting occurs at two to three times the rate of reforestation. It is estimated that the standing timber resource has dwindled from 64 million cubic meters in 1949 to 29 million cubic meters in 1980. That suggests an annual deforestation rate of 1.83 percent per year.