Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) formed the
Protected Area Task Force (PATF), to continue earlier work done by the
Biodiversity Working Group; its 2004 report to the State Council, China’s
Protected Areas, makes comprehensive recommendations for reform of the PA
system and informs this book. Simultaneously, legislators and administrators
initiated planning for new legislation on nature reserves, which would both
rationalize and modernize the system.
DISTRIBUTION OF PROTECTED AREAS IN CHINA
Figure 5.1 displays the geographic distribution of protected areas in China,
which is quite uneven.
Each province or autonomous region has nature reserves, but the greatest
expanse lies within the western provinces, which have relatively low human
population density. Nineteen nature reserves are larger than 10000 square
kilometers (most are in the West); collectively, they comprise about 66 percent
of the total nature reserve area.^12 The largest nature reserve in China is the
Sanjiangyuan (Three Rivers’ Source) in Qinghai Province.^13 In eight provinces
- Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and
Heilongjiang – nature reserves cover approximately 20 percent of the area, and
the population density is 32 people per square kilometer. In the other
provinces, nature reserves extend to only about 5 percent of the land area,
while the population density is 293 people per square kilometer.^14
The western and southwestern provinces of China have the highest levels of
biodiversity, explaining the large spaces allocated to nature reserves. Low-
altitude regions with high population density and concentrated biodiversity are
not adequately covered.^15 The exclusion of economic activities except tourism
would make it quite difficult to add populated, low-altitude regions to the
system of protected areas. Table 5.1 reviews the types of nature reserves in
China.
Nature reserves in China are organized into three types: natural ecosystem,
wildlife, and natural monuments. Of the areas included in natural ecosystems,
Table 5.1 indicates that ocean and coastal ecosystems are poorly covered (even
though the number of protected areas had doubled to 80 by 2005). As
mentioned previously, in the wildlife ecosystems, there are few PAs for plants
as compared to animals.
The political and administrative distribution of protected areas is also
uneven. Just 226 of the 2000 plus PAs (about 11 percent of the total) are
national nature reserves. The remainder fall under the jurisdiction of provinces
or autonomous areas, but are effectively controlled by one of three sub-
national jurisdictions: provinces (or autonomous areas), municipalities, or
Protected areas and biodiversity conservation 103