BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) -- A small leaf-addicted white moth has fanned great unease of the Chinese government over the eco-environment safety of its capital Beijing in the spring.

The State Forestry Administration (SFA) announced on Wednesday that Beijing and its three neighbors, Tianjin, Hebei and Liaoning, would jointly carry out a battle to wipe out the American White Moth, or Hyphantria cunea, a harmful forest migrant from the North America.

The invasive alien moth is threatening plants and crops in six provinces and municipalities in China with 116 counties involved, among which, Beijing and its neighbors suffered most, according to an SFA's latest bulletin on the moth-attacking situation.

A total of 300,000 hectares of plants in the four places are attacked by the pest. In Beijing, 50,000 trees have fallen victim to the moth, but fortunately, the urban areas of the capital is still free from the devastating moth, said Wei Diansheng, head of the SFA's Tree Planting and Forestation Department.

The situation, however, remains worrying as the number of the counties and districts in Beijing attacked by the moth has increased to nine from four in 2004, said Wei.

Beijing's "Green Olympics" might turn into a brown one if the pest were not effectively controlled, said Wu Jian, chief engineer of Wei's department.

The General Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, has issued a notice, requiring the governments of the month-hunted areas to take immediate measures to curd the spread of the pest and ensure the eco-environmental safety of Beijing, said Wei.

Besides planes spraying pesticide, safety ecological "weapons", such as insecticidal lamps, sexual attractants, American white moth virus and chouionia cunea, a tiny bee which is a natural enemy to the moth, will play an important role in the campaign, said Wu.

In addition, the forestry departments of Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning and Hebei have jointly delivered posters and handbooks on the month prevention to the attacked areas, said Wu.

May is the key period of controlling the moth spread. Beijing has carried out a tree-by-tree inspection in the areas under the moth attack and the forestry stations in the city have strengthened supervision of the moth.

First detected in northeastern Liaoning Province in 1979, American white moth has strong reproductive ability and disperses widely with a favorable chance. Each moth can lay 2,000 to 3,000 eggs. A family of larva can eat the leaves of a healthy tree in several days, said Wu.

China is the world's third largest country and one of the richest in terms of biodiversity. A wide range of habitats and environmental conditions makes China especially vulnerable to the establishment of invasive species of foreign origin.

Statistics from the SFA show that each year the forests damaged by invasive forest pests such as the American white moth total more than 1.3 million hectares, causing more than 52.8 billion yuan (6.6 billion U. S. dollars) of losses to China's agriculture and forestry each year. Enditem