America’s best idea remade in China
Beijing expands park system with eye on U.S. success
BAIHUASHAN NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE, China — Wang Zhan drives three hours out of Beijing’s smog, past graybrick towns and yellowed hills to reach a place where he can hear birds.
The Baihuashan National Nature Reserve, a rare sanctuary of pine trees and unobstructed views just west of the capital, is one of China’s more successful attempts to preserve its dwindling natural resources. Signs encourage people to stay on the trails and off the “wild mountains.”
China has no single agency responsible for managing its haphazard assortment of natural areas, places that are suddenly in demand by a growing middle class looking for refuge from polluted cities.
For help, Chinese officials are turning to a system born out of similar conservation goals a century ago, an idea once labeled America’s best: its national parks.
“I’ve never been to Yellowstone, but I saw it in a film,” said Wang, a 36-yearold hairstylist from Beijing who used his day off to go hiking with his wife. He flicked through a series of phone photos from their trek through Baihuashan, depicting a series of cloudless skies and deep valleys that he imagined must be similar to the mountains of Wyoming. “We climbed to the top. I think the view is similar.”
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell underscored the relationship in a visit in July to the reserve, where she established a sister park connection with Shenandoah National Park.
Two months later, China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the U.S. National Park Service signed a formal cooperation agreement. The Paulson Institute, a Chicago-based think tank, also has agreed to assist Chinese officials with pilot projects that span nine provinces.
“Our national parks are an important source of shared national pride and cultural identity,” Paulson Institute Chairman and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said as his organization formalized the partnership in Beijing.
He said the center will work with China to “help develop a comprehensive and effective system of protected areas.”
China has set aside about 18 percent of its land for protection, compared to nearly 14 percent in the U.S.
Both systems comprise a patchwork of parkland made up of forests, wetlands and other scenic areas. The U.S. Department of the Interior manages most of America’s vast network in a clear, regulated manner. China’s thousands of national-level parks have overlapping administrations, inconsistent standards and competing interests.
But conservation goals at some parks have lost out to the drive for tourism, a valuable source of income for local governments.
Ticket prices can top $30, two days’ wages for a rural migrant worker. At some locales, hordes trample scenic views, plastic bags drift downstream and couples scratch their names in 300year-old trees.
“A lot of Chinese parks are not about preservation, they’re about moneymaking,” said Guangyu Wang, a forestry expert at the University of British Columbia.
Guangyu recalled a recent trip to China, when he tried to see peach blossoms and instead spent four hours stuck in traffic.
China has struggled with ecotourism. In 2009, a man in Yunnan province hunted and ate the last tiger in a nature preserve. A wetland park in Guangzhou last year installed lightning rods after two tourists were struck by lightning.
The latest push comes from the top. President Xi Jinping told top officials in 2013 that the country needed a “real national park system,” according to state media.
Leaders want to project China’s new image as a climate-conscious global power. And they also recognize wealthier Chinese are exploring the world and desire similar experiences back home.
“Public awareness of nature conservation has increased, and the general public and decision-makers have really changed their philosophy,” said Zhu Chunquan, head of the China office for the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Officials also hope increased domestic travel will act as a salve for the slowing economy. Tourism has doubled over the last four years, according to China’s tourism agency.
But Chinese use parks differently than Americans do, and administrators aim to select aspects of the U.S. model rather than simply duplicate it.
Chinese generally keep their park visits short; few sites even allow camping. And while family trips are now popular, many still opt for cheaper bus tours.
“Chinese tourists mainly go for one day or a half-day to have a quick look around, not for one or two weeks to walk inside the reserve or to establish a personal relationship with nature,” Zhu said.
The pilot projects look largely at management and funding, as officials weigh what role the central government should play in running the parks.
U.S. national parks are publicly funded and rely only partially on entrance fees.
But Chinese sites depend on revenue to sustain themselves, and officials sometimes use the income to cover other local government expenses.
Chinese officials also must find out how to balance the needs of communities that have lived in these regions for generations.
A record 307 million people visited U.S. national parks last year. (The Park Service celebrated its centennial anniversary in late August.) The Chinese government doesn’t compile overall visits, and Baihuashan officials said they weren’t certain about their total number because a different district operates two other entrance gates.
Wang Suohong, a 47-yearold who works in the construction industry, spent a recent afternoon with a friend surveying Baihuashan, which means “100flower mountain.”
“You can see a lot of man-made elements in Chinese parks, but if a tree falls in Yellowstone, they won’t (clean) it up,” said Wang, who spoke with awe of his trip years ago to the first U.S. national park.
Officials plan to assess next steps in their national park vision after the pilot efforts conclude.
“To view with confidence the natural beauty and national image, that is what China is lacking, and that is what we need to do,” said Deng Zhaoming, a lecturer at Hunan First Normal University who studies tourism management. Nicole Liu in the Los Angeles Times’ Beijing bureau contributed.