COP 15: China Leads Biodiversity Protection
China's forest coverage rate and stock volume have both increased for 30 years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday said that China has made remarkable progress in building an ecological civilization, including wildlife protection. Xi also announced China's initiative to establish the Kunming Biodiversity Fund and take the lead by investing 1.5 billion RMB to the fund.
FROM GIANT PANDAS TO ASIAN ELEPHANTS, SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS MADE BY CHINA IN BIODIVERSITY
Xi made the remarks while addressing the leaders' summit of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) via video link in Beijing.
With the theme "Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth", the conference kicked off on October 11 in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The conference and related meetings provide the global community with further opportunities to join hands to build a better future in harmony with nature, and to continue efforts to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted at COP10 in Nagoya, Japan 11 years ago.
According to Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China's implementation of the Targets was better than the global average, since China achieved beyond -expectation progress in three of the 20 targets and key progress in 13 others.
These achievements did not come out of nowhere as China has been taking actions all along.
China's forest coverage rate and stock volume have both increased for 30 years. 85 percent of wildlife populations under key protection have been effectively protected, the collection and preservation of biological genetic resources rank among the highest in the world, and the populations of rare animals such as giant pandas are increasing.
This is a miniature of China's efforts in biodiversity conservation and the country's contribution to the protection of nature all over the globe.
Marco Lambertini, Director General of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International, said that China has made important contributions to the protection of global environment. The WWF thought highly of China's achievements in ecological civilization, its goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, and the country's commitment of stopping building new coal power stations overseas. China's leadership is of great importance to achieve an ambitious and executable post -2020 global biodiversity framework, according to Lambertini.
