Nature offered more protection

National parks will be regions that can showcase typical Chinese ecosystems.

Since 2015, China has approved the construction of 10 pilot national parks covering more than 200,000 square kilometers across the country, including the Giant Panda National Park, which includes parts of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces; the Qilian Mountains National Park in Gansu and Qinghai province; and the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.

In national parks, the strictest protection occurs within "red line" zones, a key government strategy putting designated areas under mandatory protection.

The pilot program will end next year and the administration will then release a national standard for the recognition of national parks and their management. By the end of next year, a batch of national parks under the new standard will be unveiled.

Last year, a research center for national park planning was established in southwestern China's Yunnan province in an effort to facilitate the protection of China's nature reserves.

With more than 70 researchers specializing in zoology, botany, wetland and nature reserve protection, and landscaping, the research center is building on work conducted by an institute that has been dedicated to national park research since the 1990s.

To simplify management, the guideline says each nature reserve area will receive uniform management from one administrative body, and management and control will feature a range of restrictions on human activities.

National parks and nature reserves will have core protection areas and general control areas. Human activities will be prohibited in the former and be subject to strict restrictions in the latter. Nature parks will be defined as regular control areas and be subject to less stringent restrictions.

The guideline includes several principles to guide protection work, with government departments to play a leading role and input from social organizations and experts from research institutes also welcomed.

It also emphasizes that the new mechanism will be formulated according to the law and the interests of the people. International experience will also be factored into the new mechanism.