China has exceptional biodiversity, with ecosystems ranging from permanent ice fields to tropical moist forests. It holds 15% of the world’s vertebrate and 12% of its plant species, in about 6% of the Earth’s land surface.
China has a long history of nature conservation through protected areas (PAs) and has established over 11,800 PAs, including nature reserves, forest parks, wetland parks, scenic areas, water parks, etc, accounting for more than 18% of China’s terrestrial territory. However, only less than 800 Chinese PAs are included in the WDPA, with about 90% categorised as V, and a small proportion as Ia, IV and VI.
With the support of the IUCN China country office and Huawei Global, the Tech4Nature China flagship is improving wildlife conservation and data management of two protected areas in China through the appropriate use of technology and digital solutions and is mobilising protected areas to participate in the Green List, based on good partnerships with Huawei.
The national park is a 4,269,000 ha IUCN Category III protected area in Hainan, China. The park is the only “continental island” tropical rainforest on the intersection of tropical rainforest and monsoonal broadleaf evergreen forest.
The national park is a 117,000 ha IUCN Category III protected area in Hubei, China. As the most well-preserved evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forest ecosystem in East Asia, Shennongjia National Park is China’s first protected area to simultaneously be included in five major international conservation frameworks: the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Reserve, the UNESCO Global Geopark, the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Ramsar Sites and the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas. It also serves as a core habitat for rare and endangered species such as the Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), the Sichuan golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana), and the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus).
At Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, Tech4Nature aims to provide technical support for the acoustic monitoring of Hainan gibbons. To date, full coverage of 5 family groups monitoring has been achieved, automatic identification and real-time back transmission of Hainan gibbon acoustic monitoring have been realized. In the ecological restoration area located on the original site of a relocated ecological migration village, Tech4Nature aims to assess the impact of ecological restoration on the local ecosystem and biodiversity through comparative research, thereby providing scientific and technological support for the development of Hainan National Park.
At Shennongjia National Park, Tech4Nature aims to leverage intelligent monitoring technology to establish a human-bear conflict prevention and control system. This initiative aims to protect the natural behavioral patterns of bear populations while mitigating community safety risks, thereby balancing the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.
