How China's national park system drives ecological advancement

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Several days a month, Wang Jianqiang prepares over 10 kilograms of equipment and food and heads toward the core area of Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park to monitor Hainan black-crested gibbons.

As a member of the park's monitoring team, Wang, who is over 50 years old, has dedicated at least five days a month for years to monitor and document the gibbons' population and behaviors in the park's core area.

Listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, the species' population once declined sharply due to habitat destruction. By the 1970s, it had fallen to fewer than 10 gibbons.

There was a time when spotting a gibbon even once in 10 visits to the core area was considered lucky.  "That was the past. Now, we see more gibbons than ever before!"  said a proud Wang.

The population has flourished thanks to improved daily monitoring, habitat restoration and the implementation of a long-term protection and research strategy. The population rose from 13 in 2003 to 33 in 2020. Since the national park's establishment in 2021, the population has grown, reaching 42 gibbons.

The expansion of the Hainan black-crested gibbon population exemplifies China's commitment to ecological protection.

Over the years, China has implemented a wide-ranging set of ecological reforms to develop its "ecological civilization." Setting up a protected areas system with national parks as the mainstay was proposed as part of these reforms in 2013.

The national park system aims to end the segmented management of a nature reserve that covers multiple provinces so that the integrity of wild animals' habitats can be guaranteed.

In 2015, China launched 10 pilot national parks to protect the natural environment and biodiversity. In October 2021, the country officially designated five of these pilot projects as national parks, including the Sanjiangyuan National Park, the Wuyi Mountain National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, further improving the national park system.

Since the establishment of the first batch of national parks, efforts have led to significant wildlife protection achievements.

The Giant Panda National Park is building ecological corridors and has established the Giant Panda National Protection Research Center, enhancing panda conservation and protecting wild panda resources. As of 2023, the Sanjiangyuan National Park had invested nearly 7 billion yuan (about $1 billion) in ecological restoration, protecting the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang river headwaters, and the population of Tibetan antelopes has increased from less than 20,000 in the 1990s to over 70,000. Meanwhile, the population of Siberian tigers at the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park has recovered to over 50, and Amur leopards now exceed 60 individuals.

To enhance ecological protection nationwide, China unveiled a plan in December 2022 to create the world's largest national park system by 2035. The plan includes 49 candidate sites for national parks, covering approximately 1.1 million square kilometers. The candidate areas contain more than 5,000 wild vertebrate species and 29,000 types of higher plants and are expected to incorporate over 80 percent of China's strictly protected fauna and flora.