China's First National Park - Pudacuo

From The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy has helped China achieve a conservation landmark: the establishment of that country's first national park, which will also serve as a model for a new Chinese national park system.

The new park — Pudacuo National Park in China's Northwest Yunnan Province — is located in one of the most biodiverse regions of the world.

The establishment of Pudacuo National Park is significant in other ways as well:

  • It increases conservation in the region by incorporating 10 times more land into an area that was formerly a nature reserve;

  • It introduces skilled park management techniques to help abate threats to biodiversity in the area;

  • It provides a source of environmental education for local communities; and

  • It provides economic benefits to local communities through park-related jobs and ecotourism.

The Conservancy introduced the national park system to China as part of a partnership with the Chinese government. The partnership included study tours for local, provincial and national Chinese government officials to such places as Yellowstone National Park in the United States and Komodo National Park in Indonesia, where they observed examples of protected-area management and learned about park design, infrastructure development and tourism management.

“What…distinguishes this park [from a typical Chinese nature reserve] is that the local communities are already benefiting from it because they are preferentially employed for jobs within the park,” says Zhu Li, communications manager for the Conservancy’s China Program. “The national park system embodies the conservation ideal of ‘nature for people’ rather than ‘nature from people.’”

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