BEIJING- A meeting of the State Council, or cabinet, Wednesday approved a plan for ecological preservation and environmental protection of western China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau over the next two decades.

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According to the meeting, presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region covers western China's Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regions, as well as Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu provinces, which are "key to the country's ecological safety."

Strengthening environmental protection in the region is significant to "maintaining border stability, ethnic unity and the building of a well-off society," said a statement of the meeting.