Governance of Biodiversity Conservation in China And Taiwan

The most concrete actions taken by the state to address biodiversity
conservation have been the establishment of nature reserves, forest reserves,
parks, and other protected areas (PAs), the subject of Chapter 5. The first
nature reserve was established in 1956, but until the end of the Maoist era, few
areas received this type of protection. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, the
number of protected areas increased dramatically. By 2005, over 2000
protected areas had been formed in China; some are quite small, but a few
comprise large areas of the lands in a province or autonomous region.^17 In
total, they comprise about 15 percent of China’s land area, larger than in the
United States (US). However, critics allege that from one-third to half of the
PAs are ‘paper parks’.
The first mention of PAs in planning documents was in 1979. Regulations
were promulgated for them in 1985. Revisions to these rules were endorsed by
the State Council in 1994. The legal basis, management and financing of
protected areas are controversial and the issues are presented comprehensively
in a recent report, China’s Protected Areas.^18 By regulation, the protected areas
include three separate management zones:

‘[Core]areawith no use, habitation or interference permitted, apart from limited

scientific research; buffer zonewhere some collection, measurements, management

and scientific research is permitted (but which is not really a buffer zone in the usual

international meaning of that term); and experimental zonewhere scientific

investigation, public education, tourism and raising of rare and endangered wild

species are permitted.’^19

The regulation establishes two levels, national and local, for protected areas,
based on the importance of their biodiversity. It provides a management
system, including specification of national and local responsible agencies and
the requirement that each nature reserve have a specialized management body.
It also lists prohibited activities in nature reserves, such as deforestation,
grazing, fishing, herb collecting, land clearing, and mining.
Regulations address some topics on which the law is silent, such as
wetlands and protected areas. No regulations, however, constrain behavior
toward species without economic value and many critical habitat areas.

Participation in International Conferences and Conventions

China’s first involvement in international environmental conferences occurred
in the 1972 United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Human
Environment (UNCHE). Few steps had been taken at that time to establish an
environmental protection organizational network. As Jahiel notes, until that
time, only an ‘office’ handled environmental protection activity.^20
China’s role at the conference was minor, and it followed that of developing

72 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan