SHIJIAZHUANG, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- As China is pressing ahead on a green development path, green jobs, including forest ranger and environmental sanitation engineer, have embraced a golden age of rapid development.

Niu Yuzhu is a forest ranger working at a forest farm in Zhuolu County, north China's Hebei Province.

In addition to regular patrol work, Niu has also taken on other duties as the farm's "forest chief."

Thanks to decades-long efforts by many workers like Niu, the forest coverage rate of Zhuolu County has increased from 12 percent about 70 years ago to 54.43 percent today, with a total forest area of 2,206,700 mu (147,113 hectares).

Recently, China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security publicized a new edition of the country's occupational classifications with 134 green professions, up from 127 in 2015.

According to the ministry, green professions are mainly in such fields as ecological environment monitoring, protection and governance, new energy production, and waste recovery and utilization, with a focus on the sustainable development of production, life and the ecological environment.

In Binhu New District in Hengshui City, Hebei Province, Liu Zhenjie has been working on the restoration of the Hengshui Lake wetland for 21 years.

Covering 75 square km, Hengshui Lake is the only nature reserve on the north China plain that maintains a complete wetland ecosystem of swamps, waters, beaches, meadows and woodlands.

A report released this year by the job-seeking website Liepin shows that among all sub-sectors, the carbon-neutrality sector saw the largest year-on-year increase of over 400 percent in new jobs in the first quarter of this year.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service