China aims to build its own Yellowstone

XINING, China — There’s a building boom on the Tibetan plateau, one of the world’s last remote places. Mountains long crowned by garlands of fluttering prayer flags — a traditional landscape blessing — are newly topped with sprawling steel power lines. At night, the illuminated signs of Sinopec gas stations cast a red glow over newly built highways.

Ringed by the world’s tallest mountain ranges, the region long known as “the rooftop of the world” is now in the crosshairs of China’s latest modernization push, marked by multiplying skyscrapers and expanding high-speed rail lines.

But this time, there’s a difference: The Chinese government also wants to set limits on the region’s growth in order to design its own version of one of the U.S.’s proudest legacies — a national park system.

In August, policymakers and scientists from China, the United States and other countries convened in Xining, capital of the country’s Qinghai province, to discuss China’s plans to create a unified park system with clear standards for limiting development and protecting ecosystems.

The country’s economy has boomed over the past 40 years, but priorities are now expanding to include conserving key natural resources, says Zhu Chunquan, the China representative of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a Switzerland-based scientific group.

“It’s quite urgent as soon as possible to identify the places, the ecosystems and other natural features” to protect, Zhu says.

Among other goals, China aims to build its own Yellowstone on the Tibetan plateau.

Zhu serves on an advisory committee providing input on the development of China’s nascent national park system, expected to be officially unveiled in 2020. Chinese officials also have visited U.S. national parks, including Yellowstone and Yosemite, and sought input from varied organizations, including the Chicago-based Paulson Institute and the Nature Conservancy.

The ambition to create a unified park system represents “a new and serious effort to safeguard China’s biodiversity and natural heritage,” Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm says.