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System Overhaul Pudacuo, Yunnan Province for Many of China’S 10,000 Protected Areas, Conservation Has Come Second to Economic Development for Decades

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System Overhaul Pudacuo, Yunnan Province for Many of China’S 10,000 Protected Areas, Conservation Has Come Second to Economic Development for Decades SPECIAL REPORT Get Set, Go: Board Game Boot Camps No. 095 June 2016 Volume ECONOMY Steel Willed: The Politics of Overcapacity POLITICS Missed Shots: Yao Ming Versus the CBA CLOSER TO NATURE Can China’s new national park system integrate communities and conservation? ¥20 www.newschinamag.com June.indd 1 16-5-25 下午1:19 Cover Story Mountains are visible all around Wanglang National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province Yan by Wang Photo ALL NATURAL About 18 percent of China's landmass is home to approximately 10,000 protected areas, but the local governments and bureaus that manage them have frequently prioritized tourist numbers and financial gain over effective conservation. Now the country wants that to change. Last year, China launched nine pilot national park projects that will be the first step in developing an integrated national park system that aims to put conservation first. NewsChina travels to sites in Sichuan Province where both the progress and problems of implementing such a grand conservation strategy are clearly visible 20 CHINA WEEKLY I June 2016 June.indd 20 16-5-25 下午1:20 Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve in western Qinghai Province is one of China's nine pilot national parks by IC Photo ALL NATURAL The wetlands in Inner Mongolia's Ergun Wetland National Park cover 126,000 hectares by IC Photo CHINA WEEKLY I June 2016 21 June.indd 21 16-5-25 下午1:20 Cover Story Distribution of protected areas in China and the nine pilot national parks National Parks Sanjiangyuan, Qinghai Province System Overhaul Pudacuo, Yunnan Province For many of China’s 10,000 protected areas, conservation has come second to economic development for decades. A new national park pilot project attempts to reverse this trend and establish a system that puts nature first By Wang Yan he poachers had crept in to dig up cordyceps, a caterpillar- ternational recognition in the late 1990s due to its effective manage- shaped fungus highly prized in traditional Chinese medi- ment and support of local communities’ sustainable development. It cine. Two other trespassers used the land to herd cattle and kept close ties with research institutions and environmental manage- horses.T All of them were locals from neighboring villages, caught by ment specialists. Since the late 2000s, however, external threats have patrolling officers on a routine raid last April. The land on which they begun to impinge on the once model reserve. Parties with vested in- encroached was northwestern Sichuan Province’s Wanglang National terests push for upping tourist numbers, government departments Nature Reserve, a government-backed protected area. that oversee different aspects of Wanglang vie for power, and out-of- The area surrounding Wanglang, including the Min Mountains to date protection laws allow individuals and companies who damage the northeast, is all part of a region called the “mountains of south- the reserve to slip through legal cracks. ern China,” one of the planet’s 36 biodiversity hotspots, according Wanglang exemplifies the issues faced by China’s numerous pro- to the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. Biodiversity hotspots are tected areas as a whole. The total area of the country’s approximately characterized as areas that meet extremely high standards of biologi- 10,000 protected regions covers about 18 percent of China, a propor- cal richness yet also face environmental threats. Established in 1965, tion higher than the global average. However, weak management and Wanglang was one of China’s first giant panda reserves. It earned in- insufficient funding are threatening most of their conservation efforts. 22 CHINA WEEKLY I June 2016 June.indd 22 16-5-25 下午1:20 first one established in Guangdong Province’s Dinghu Mountain re- Yichun, Heilongjiang Province gion in 1956. Officially protected areas are managed by different supervision agencies, depending on their environmental characteristics with the two major players– the State Forestry Administration and the Min- Changbaishan, Jilin Province istry of Environmental Protection (MEP) – heading the list. Other supervisors include the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Oceanic Administration, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Badaling, Beijing Development. Each of these agencies has different priorities. The resulting bureaucratic web muddles the chain of command when it comes to protected areas and erodes area managers’ ability to do their jobs. Bai Chengshou of the MEP’s nature and ecology conservation Sanjiangyuan, Qinghai Province department once expressed publicly: “The different ecological factors, Shennongjia, Hubei Province National park pilot project different supervising departments and different measures taken in dif- Protected area ferent protected areas have all contributed to the destruction of the Chengbu, Hunan Province ecosystem from both a construction and managerial perspective.” Kaihua, Zhejiang Province Worse, while these protected areas are overseen by different gov- ernment departments, they also have no up-to-date legal shield. As a result of this gap in Chinese law, local governments rewarded for Wuyishan, Fujian Province economic growth and private, profit-driven companies both plunder the land through under-the-radar mining, construction projects and tourist activities (see “Protecting the Protected,” NewsChina, Decem- ber 2012, Issue 52). Crippled System The results of these issues have infiltrated the Wanglang reserve. Lo- cals exploit the reserve’s resources by overgrazing and poaching valu- able wild plants, all of which damage the panda’s natural habitat. Hy- dropower station and highway construction encroach upon the area. At the same time, the Mianyang city government, which oversees the reserve, pressures Wanglang to bolster tourist numbers. In 2013, Tenio Group, a private company in charge of tourism in Wanglang, planned to invest 3 billion yuan (then US$488m) into transforming the reserve into a major attraction that could support The central government is trying to turn things around. In late more than 600,000 visitors a year, according to media reports. Pre- 2013, President Xi Jinping included the development of a true na- viously, the most visitors Wanglang had ever received in a year was tional park system into the central committee’s official plans for deep- 50,000, said Zhao Lianjun, deputy director of the reserve’s manage- er reform. Nine pilot park projects were announced in June 2015. But ment bureau. One of that bureau’s former directors once stated that in a country where the concept of a national park remains undefined, the reserve could only sustain a maximum of 30,000 visitors a year systemic change is needed before these sites can successfully prioritize before the impact from tourists would start damaging the pandas’ nature conservation while remaining an educational attraction open habitat. to the public. Yin Kaipu, a professor at the Chengdu Institute of Biology and the author of Tracing One Hundred Years of Change: Illustrating the Envi- Messy Network ronmental Changes in Western China, told NewsChina that the situa- In China, the term “protected area” encompasses many different tion in Wanglang is almost at the “point of no return.” categories. Nature reserves, scenic spots, geoparks, forest parks and Although Wanglang is nominally a “national” reserve, in reality it wetland parks all fall under this umbrella. Of the 10,000 total such is affiliated with the local government of Pingwu County, which is sites in the country, 2,697 are designated as nature reserves, with the situated within the city of Mianyang. The Pingwu government, simi- CHINA WEEKLY I June 2016 23 June.indd 23 16-5-25 下午1:20 Cover Story Photo Courtesy of Wanglang National Nature Reserve Nature National Photo Courtesy of Wanglang Local villager Chen Yunxia (center), her father and her aunt were spotted by a patrol Trash left by visitors is just one way team while illegally harvesting valuable fungi in Wanglang National Nature Reserve, high numbers of tourists impact nature April 24, 2016 reserves lar to local governments nationwide, tries to maximize its tourism- document. related tax revenue in order to boost the local economy. The problem In early 2015, the State Council instructed the National Develop- for Wanglang, however, is that this comes at the expense of the re- ment and Reform Commission (NDRC) to cooperate with 12 other serve’s habitat. Complicating matters are the contradicting motiva- relevant government departments and form a plan for a national park tions of different local government departments. “For example, the system. By mid-2015, the government announced nine pilot national local animal husbandry bureau wants to increase herding range, the parks projects in eight provinces and one municipality. (All of the sites tourism bureau’s target is increasing tourism, while the transportation were already protected areas.) The ultimate aim is to establish an in- department aims to build highways,” Zhao Lianjun told our reporter. tegrated national park system that fits the Chinese context yet reflects “However, all these departments are fulfilling their roles without con- international standards. The deadline for this is the end of 2017, after sidering whether their actions cause ecological damage to the giant which time the new system will roll out across the country. panda’s natural habitat. Conservation requires the combined efforts Amid central government calls to build China into an “ecological of multiple stakeholders, rather than just one group.” civilization,” officials are viewing the national park initiative as a flag- The most serious conflict is that between Wanglang’s interests and ship project for this greening movement, said Su Yang, a researcher those of the local tourism industry. “We will definitely face more pres- at the Development Research Center, a think tank under the State sure from the tourism industry in the future, and I can’t imagine how Council. we are going to handle things when the number of tourists rockets Yang Rui, head of Tsinghua University’s landscape architecture up to the hundreds of thousands,” Zhao said.
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