Booming China Bids to Save Threatened Plants
Date: 22-Jun-07
Country: UK
Author: Jeremy Lovell
The project, in collaboration with the British-based Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), aims to save the 10 percent of the world's plant species native to China.
The ultimate aim of the plant conservation plan is to turn nearly 15 million hectares of farmland back to forest -- an area larger than England -- over the next three years and end logging in the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers.
It also aims to ban potentially polluting developments in key biodiversity areas, crack down on all illegal logging and push money into scientific environmental research.
"The focus of this new strategy is very much plant orientated instead of broader biodiversity, which tends to end up focusing on fauna to the detriment of flora," said a BGCI spokeswoman.
"The trouble is that this is not a funded plan at this point," she said, appealing for investors to step forward.
BGCI, which is linked with botanic gardens in 120 countries, counts among its key collaborators in the new plan the world renowned Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh and botanic gardens in China.
To start with, the researchers will need to know exactly how many plant species they are dealing with in China.
China's National Environment Protection Agency said in a report in 1997 that the country had one of the richest biodiversities in the world.
It said there were more than 30,000 species of higher plants and 6,347 species of vertebrates, making up 10 percent and 14 percent respectively of world totals.
"China ranks first in the northern hemisphere in terms of its biodiversity," the study said.
"Nevertheless, because of China's long history of exploitation, frequent wars and huge population, the destruction of biodiversity has been great, making its future protection an enormous task," it said.
China is building two coal-fired power stations a week to keep pace with demand in an economy that has posted double-digit growth for four years in a row.