China’s National Parks: Building a Community for All Life on Earth

Construction of national parks is promoting ecological progress in China. In 2013, China introduced its plan to build national parks, heralding the start of the drive to create a national park system.

“Construction of national parks aims to protect large-scale representative natural ecosystems in the country,” said Tang Xiaoping, president of the Institute of National Parks. “We are building China’s most important ecological spaces in certain land or ocean areas to achieve rational protection and utilization of natural resources.”

When the Dinghu Mountain National Nature Reserve, the country’s first nature reserve, was established in 1956, China began various explorations in the field of ecological conservation such as building nature reserves, scenic areas, geoparks, forest parks, and wetland parks. Those involved soon realized that management of nature reserves needed to be continuously adjusted and strengthened to keep pace with the times. To this end, China has formed a system to protect natural areas including national parks, nature reserves, and natural parks. National parks play a primary role of safeguarding the country’s ecological security and preserving key areas with the rarest species and the greatest biodiversity.

The first group of five national parks established in China included Sanjiangyuan National Park, Giant Panda National Park, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, and Wuyi Mountain National Park. They cover 10 provincial-level regions including Qinghai, Sichuan, Jilin, Hainan, and Fujian. The protected areas total 230,000 square kilometers, accounting for 2.4 percent of China’s land area. These places are home to nearly 30 percent of the country’s key terrestrial wild species protected at the national level.

“National parks are filling a void in the protection of large-scale ecosystems and ecological processes in China,” said Yang Rui, president of the Institute for National Parks and dean of the Department of Landscapes under the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University. “Now, these places are receiving greater support in terms of awareness, strength, and resources to conserve the ecology.” The Sanjiangyuan National Park is a pristine example of large-scale ecosystem protection. Located in the hinterlands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it is where the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers originate. With an area of 190,700 square kilometers, the national park features rolling mountains, vast snow-covered wilds, and plentiful rivers and lakes.

The world’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park in the United States, was established in 1872. Although China established its first national park more than 100 years later, construction of more in the country has advanced quickly. At a press conference on July 11, 2023, Guan Zhi’ou, head of China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration and National Park Administration, highlighted that the country’s first group of five national parks has realized remarkable achievements in ecological conservation. For instance, the Sanjiangyuan National Park has achieved comprehensive protection of the sources of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers, with its forest and grassland coverage exceeding 74 percent and the population of Tibetan antelopes growing to more than 70,000. Through promoting system innovation and resource integration and establishing the National Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, the Giant Panda National Park has sheltered more than 70 percent of wild pandas and built ecological corridors linking 13 giant panda habitats. The Northeastern China Tiger and Leopard National Park has set up a system integrating functions like protection, monitoring, and research, and the populations of tigers and leopards in the national park continue growing. Today, it is home to more than 50 wild Siberian tigers and more than 60 wild Amur leopards. The Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park focuses on the protection and restoration of rainforest habitats and has established a gibbon protection and research center with six groups of 37 wild gibbons in total. Following a principle of coordinated protection and development, the Wuyi Mountain National Park has formed a pattern integrating ecological conservation, green development, and livelihood improvement.

Construction of national parks in China has followed a win-win path combining protection of the eco-environment and improvement of people’s livelihood.

Tongmu Village in the heart of the Wuyi Mountain National Park in Fujian Province has been hailed as the global cradle of black tea. The idea of ecological conservation was already rooted in the hearts of local people a long time ago. Some tea trees planted by villagers were shaded by nearby tall broad-leaved trees, and the lack of sun hindered their growth. “I told villagers they should prune the taller trees to allow more sunlight to reach the tea trees but not to cut them down,” said Li Wansong, a local forest ranger. “Even so, they never pruned the trees and just let them grow naturally.”

In the Sanjiangyuan National Park, more than 500 herders work as part-time personnel using infrared cameras, line transects, and other methods to conduct long-term monitoring of wild animals and record changes in biodiversity, providing valuable data to evaluate the efficacy of scientific research and protection. By mobilizing herders to safeguard the local natural ecosystem, they were transformed from grassland exploiters into ecological guardians and beneficiaries.

Countless children have ventured to the Giant Panda National Park to receive nature education through close contact with it. The trip enriches their environmental protection awareness and even fosters some activists devoted to ecological conservation. More and more people are volunteering to join the patrol team in the Northeastern China Tiger and Leopard National Park and contribute to cross-border migration and breeding of wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards. Some Li and Miao people have lived in what is now the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park for generations, and their colorful ethnic lifestyles continue to enrich the rainforests. Many new species have settled in the Wuyi Mountain National Park, where they are under state-class protection.

In 2022, China unveiled a plan to build more national parks with 49 nominees with a total area of 1.1 million square kilometers, wherein more than 5,000 species of terrestrial vertebrates and 29,000 species of higher plants live. China’s efforts to build a national park system can not only empower ecological protection and sustained development in the country, but also provide Chinese solutions to building a community of all life on Earth and promoting sustainable development for all mankind.