Five-year achievements unveiled for Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park

The achievements of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park over the five years since its establishment were unveiled by Zhu Shirong, deputy director of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park Administration, at the 2026 International Symposium on Tropical Rainforest National Parks, held on Sept. 11 in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, south China's Hainan Province.

Among the highlights, the population of the Hainan gibbon, one of the world's rarest primates, grew from two groups totaling seven to nine individuals in the early 1980s to seven groups totaling 44 individuals by the end of 2025, making it the only gibbon population worldwide to have continuously increased in number.

Photo shows a scene of the 2026 International Symposium on Tropical Rainforest National Parks, held on Sept. 11 in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, south China's Hainan Province. (Photo courtesy of the organizers of the event)

Hainan has made the national park a flagship project for national pilot zones for ecological conservation over the past years.

Ecological protection has remained the top priority. According to Zhu, Hainan has relocated 1,975 residents from 459 households living in the national park's core zone, decommissioned 25 small hydropower stations in the core zone, and implemented phased and categorized management of 248,300 mu (about 16,553.33 hectares) of plantation forest, while allocating 265 million yuan (about $39.5 million) in funds for ecological buyback, a mechanism under which the government compensates forest-rights holders to bring plantation forest under stricter ecological protection. Over the past five years, 91 new species of wild plants and animals have been found in the national park.

Hainan has also strengthened its gibbon protection system, establishing a national gibbon conservation and research center along with an academic committee, bringing the protection of rare species to a more scientific, standardized and professional level. In parallel, the province has built an integrated space-air-ground ecological monitoring network to monitor rainforests around the clock.

At present, the national park effectively protects more than 95 percent of Hainan Island's primary forest and over 55 percent of its natural forest, with the national park's overall forest coverage rate holding steady at 95.9 percent. The proportion of water quality in major water bodies and ambient air quality rated good or excellent has remained at 100 percent, while negative oxygen ion concentrations have stayed above 8,000 per cubic centimeter year-round — keeping the national park's ecological environment quality among the best in China.

Hainan has also worked to turn ecological assets into economic value. The national park's gross ecosystem product rose from 204.513 billion yuan in 2019 to 208.966 billion yuan in 2024, with the figure calculated annually for the national park as an independent spatial unit — the only national park in China chosen for a second round of pilot programs on realizing the value of ecological products.

A carbon credit stamp project launched in early 2026 is expected to sequester 326,900 tonnes of carbon over 20 years, with nearly 2,600 tonnes already traded online.

Hainan has selected and certified 36 specialty products from the national park in two batches. After the first 14 products began carrying an exclusive label, partner businesses saw monthly sales rise by 20 percent to 30 percent.

Drawing on the national park's rich rainforest resources, Hainan has also developed five premium ecotourism routes and built a 466-kilometer scenic highway encircling the national park, linking a number of quality attractions across nine cities and counties along the way — moves aimed at deepening the integration of ecological conservation and cultural tourism.

Hainan has pursued ecological protection and improved livelihoods in parallel, allowing local communities to share the fruits of conservation. Over the past five years, the province has secured 179 million yuan in central government funding to complete comprehensive improvements to the living environment in 56 villages. It has also prioritized hiring local residents for conservation work, employing 1,593 of them as full-time ecological rangers.

Hainan has likewise refined its ecological compensation mechanism, promoting a trans-regional ecological compensation system between the nine cities and counties covered by the national park and their surrounding cities and counties. The province has secured 11.62 million yuan in central fiscal funding to carry out differentiated compensation for non-state-owned public-welfare forests, benefiting 372 village collectives and 6,194 farming households.

Over the past five years, Hainan has deepened international exchange and cooperation on tropical rainforest conservation. It has successfully hosted an international symposium on tropical rainforest conservation and the Global Gibbon Network (GGN) first Meeting of Partners, and reached a draft memorandum of cooperation with Picos de Europa National Park.

Hainan's approach to gibbon conservation has been recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a global model for protecting rare species and has been promoted internationally.

At the eighth IUCN World Conservation Congress, a proposal on gibbon protection submitted by Hainan was passed by an overwhelming majority, becoming the world's first international resolution focused specifically on gibbon conservation. The secretariat of the GGN is permanently based in Hainan.

Hainan has revised and implemented regulations for the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, and a leading group for building the national park was established. The province has also divided the national park's territory into more than 1,500 grid units for enforcement to better protect rainforests.

Zhu said Hainan will keep working toward world-class standards, aiming to make the national park a global benchmark for tropical rainforest protection, biodiversity governance, and international cooperation on ecological progress.