Gov’t plans national park system to protect few unspoilt areas, FT says

Scenery of Qianjiazhai in Zhenyuan County of Pu’er City, southwest China’s Yunnan Province

China plans to introduce a national parks system in a move that could help address administrative problems that have so far plagued attempts to protect the country’s few remaining natural areas, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
According to an article by Lucy Hornby, China’s far-flung preserves have helped spur an appreciation for wilderness among new middle-class car owners, who delight in long road trips. The country lacks legislation or a system like the National Parks Service in the US that could help maintain the parks, and juggle the balance between protecting the natural environment and promoting tourism.
China has formally designated about 18 per cent of its land as “protected” in some manner, more than most countries. But it spends less per acre of protected land than either Thailand or Nepal, the FT detailed.
Worse, horror stories about the state of the preserved areas abound, from the forest preserve turned into a golf course to the decision by now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai to redraw the boundaries of a fish protection reserve to accommodate yet another dam outside Chongqing. In 2009 a poacher killed and ate the last tiger in a preserve for the animals along the border with Laos.
“There are a lot of areas where they just draw a line on a map but no real system is set up,” said Rose Niu, director of conservation programs at the Paulson Institute in Chicago, as quoted by the paper. The institute on Monday signed an agreement with China’s top planning agency, the National Reform and Development Commission, to advise on a national system of parks and protected areas.
Creating a national system could help with budgets, currently borne by cash-strapped local governments. Park employees at one sprawling preserve in Qinghai were expected to pay for their own motorcycle fuel, Ms Niu said.
The problems are not simply budgetary. Local officials may see a park as hindering their ability to meet economic growth targets, while local communities find their grazing and farming interrupted.
The emphasis on gross domestic product leads governments at all levels to promote mass tourism to Chinese parks but bus tours and giant hotels have strained protected areas’ fragile ecosystems. “Under China’s current conditions if a park becomes a tourism development zone it’s a disaster,” Ms Niu told the FT.
That phenomenon is on display at Jiuzhaigou, the remote and beautiful mountain valley in Sichuan province that has become known for its crowds. During the autumn National Day holidays in 2013, a 400-bus jam developed on the roads leading to Jiuzhaigou and tourists had to walk for hours in the dark to get out. Paramilitary units were deployed to control angry crowds seeking refunds.