Threats to country's biodiversity spelled out in report

By Su Zhou (China Daily)

Updated: 2015-11-13

A report by the World Wild Fund for Nature has sounded a warning on the state of China's biodiversity - the different types of species found in the country and variations within them.

An official at the fund says habitat loss and degradation of nature caused by humans and development are the most significant threats to the country's biodiversity.

The report found that just two regions, Qinghai province and the Tibet autonomous region, have a so-called ecological surplus.

This means that their regional biocapacity exceeds their ecological footprint or, in other words, that regional biocapacity can meet the consumption demands of the local population.

The biocapacity of an ecosystem is an estimate of its production of certain biological materials such as natural resources, and its absorption and filtering of other materials such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

China faces an enlarged ecological deficit with its terrestrial vertebrates declining by half and its ecological foot-print - a measure of human demand on ecosystems - doubling since 1970, the report says.

The Living Planet Report China 2015, a flagship research report on the nation's demand on nature, was released by WWF China on Thursday.

In 2010, six regions had an ecological surplus, the other four being the Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions and Yunnan and Hainan provinces.

Li Lin, program executive director of WWF China, said apart from Xinjiang, the other three could see a rapid return to an ecological surplus.

"Large-scale ecological construction in these three areas is expected to bring about a rapid return to ecological surplus," Li said. "The nature of resource development and industrial transformation in Xinjiang make it less likely to return to ecological surplus in the immediate future."

The report found that nearly half of the country's terrestrial vertebrates vanished between 1970 and 2010 and the population of amphibians and reptiles fell by 97.44 percent in these years.

"Habitat loss and degradation of nature caused by human activities and development are the most significant threats to biodiversity in China, "Lis aid. "Excessive hunting and climate change are also significant threats to amphibians, reptiles and mammals.

"Encouragingly, China's resident bird population stabilized from1970 to 2000, following a dramatic decline in earlier year, s" Li added.

"Thanks to increased protected areas and protection laws, the resident bird population since 2000 has increased by 43 percent."

Xia Guang, director of the Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said the focus on environmental protection has been adjusted in recent decades. Xia added that there should be government regulation and supervision along with preferential policies to reward environmentally friendly plans and innovative ideas from the public.

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn