China Pushes Conservation Plan As UN Biodiversity Conference Opens

China introduced an ambitious conservation plan that would set aside 23 percent of the nation as protected land and commit state funds for habitat preservation, as a UN conference on biodiversity opened. The Chinese proposal would designate 52 priority conservation areas and sets a target date of 2020 for controlling species loss. In Sichuan province, the plan includes the protection of existing reserves for giant pandas and offsetting the effects of dam construction. “If China can implement this plan systematically, then they will be managing better than any other country,” said Matthew Durnin, a Nature Conservancy scientist who helped draft the strategy. Some experts questioned the value of such voluntary national plans, however, saying that without cross-border arrangements, controls in one nation can push stresses to poorer nations — particularly given weak international controls on illegal wildlife trade. The Chinese plan comes as delegates from 193 nations gather in Nagoya, Japan, for the two-week UN Convention on Biological Diversity, a meeting some have called the “last chance” for many species.