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Nature Reserves: 9.85% of China's Territory
December 29 is the international bio-diversity day. Statistics from the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) show that China has already had 1,227 nature reserves with a total area of 98,208,000 hectares, or 9.85% instead of 9% of the country's territorial land targeted during the "9th Five-year Plan" period. Presently, China takes the world's third place after Brazil and Indonesia in terms of biological species.
Other statistics show that 59 State-level nature reserves have been founded in China in the past five years, adding up to a total of 155 over an area of 57,515,000 hectares, about 6% of China's territory.
An official with the SEPA stressed that despite a rapidly increased number of nature reserves being established laws still cannot be fully observed and enforced. In some areas, local authorities only have had their eyes on immediate, temporary or partial interests, illicitly exploiting resources and carrying out destructive construction within nature reserves. Worse still, about 44.2% of nature reserves have no special management setup and one third of them, no professional management personnel at all. In this case, to enhance supervision and management over the nature reserves has become a major task facing concerned administrative departments in China.
By PD Online Staff Deng Gang
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