China to better protect biodiversity with rules, observations

The head of the country's top environmental watchdog pledged to enhance biodiversity protection by accelerating legislation and intensifying observations as the world celebrated the 26th International Day for Biological Diversity on Wednesday.

China will accelerate legislation on the governance of access to genetic resources and benefit sharing from these resources' utilization and biological safety as it makes an effort to improve laws and regulations as well as standardized systems for biodiversity, said Li Ganjie, minister of ecology and environment, addressing a ceremony to mark the international day in the Jiangxi provincial capital of Nanchang.

He also said, with more effort devoted to investigations and observations that could help determine the country's current situation in biodiversity, China will establish a platform for biodiversity protection and supervision, according to a media release from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

The country will also promote the drawing of red lines - limits that cannot be crossed - for environmental protection as well as a platform for supervision, Li added.

Zhou Jinfeng, secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development, said currently there is no special law on biodiversity protection in China and clauses about the issue are scattered across various laws and regulations.

The scattered clauses have caused "a direct result of low efficiency in biodiversity protection", he said.

He also suggests that biodiversity protection be included in the Constitution to replace the clause on tree planting.

Public and social organizations have yet to be fully involved in surveys, supervision and assessment of biodiversity protection in the country. The work should be done with wider participation other than only involving a few experts to write reports. "Such reports may fail to show the real situation," he said.