国家公园体制National Park System

Anational park is a natural region designated to protect the integrity of one or more typical ecological systems, and to provide natural land that requires special protection and management for tourism, scientific research and environmental education purposes. Technically, such parks are different to both nature reserves and mainstream tourist attractions.

The government work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang on March 5, 2017 advanced overall planning of the national park system in an orderly fashion, providing strong support for the construction of an ecological civilization.

The primary focus now is on the establishment of a national park system that classifies land function within a new management system to solve previous management problems. At present, environmental resource protection in China happens in natural reserves, which exist as forest parks, geological parks, wetland parks, scenic spots and other forms. Because most reserves were established only for protection, they are still plagued by many problems such as the lack of systematic and rational design, overlapping management departments and vague responsibility. The construction of national parks is intended to fix such issues at the national level and restructure the functionality of such areas with an eye on safeguarding the protection and sustainability of important ecosystems.

In early 2015, China announced the launch of the national park system pilot program. In June of that year, the three-year pilot program officially went into effect. Nine nature reserves, including Sanjiangyuan, Shennongjia and Wuyi Mountain and protected areas for giant pandas and Siberian tigers, were chosen as pilot national parks.

A pilot national park, the Giant Panda National Park covers a total area of 27,000 square kilometers, stretching across Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, but 74 percent of it is in Sichuan. The pilot national park merges isolated habitats to...