China News Service, Antalya, November 12 (Wang Gaofei, Xu Junjie, Lin Zhuowei) "800 million people have escaped extreme poverty and entered a moderately prosperous society. To me, this is the starting point of Beautiful China—— A truly beautiful China is inseparable from common prosperity." On November 10, local time, a side event with the theme of "Ecological Civilization and Beautiful China Practices" was held in Antalya, Turkey during the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31). Stewart Maginnis, Deputy Director-General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), gave a speech and shared his long-term observations on China's ecological protection practices based on his first-line experience of cooperation in China for more than 20 years.
This side event was hosted by the Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization Research Center and China News Service, and co-organized by the Environmental and Economic Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and China News Network. This is the first time that China News Agency’s “News Living Room” has held a series of activities in Türkiye.
Maginnis used the example of coastal wetland restoration in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province: the local removal of the invasive species Spartina alterniflora and the restoration of 20,000 hectares of carbon-rich coastal wetlands not only enhanced the resilience of the coastal zone, but also rebuilt habitats for endangered migratory birds.
In his many years of research throughout China, such ecological practices are not an isolated case. China has 19 world natural heritage sites and natural and cultural heritage sites, and 34 protected areas have been selected into the IUCN Green List, ranking first in the world in terms of both numbers. This heavy “green report card” is the result of countless similar ecological restoration actions.
Maginnis also mentioned that even if a society is materially wealthy, it may still face shortcomings such as a lack of clean air, high-quality water sources, biodiversity, and insufficient ecological resilience. The moving thing about China’s ecological civilization concept is that it is not only a green agenda, but also a strategic choice for the symbiosis between man and nature. It promotes people to increase their income and become rich while maintaining the ecological foundation on which they depend for survival. The "dual system" theory explains this point appropriately: ecological protection and economic development are not mutually antagonistic or competing relationships.
Landscape of Tiaozini Wetland in Dongtai, Yancheng, Jiangsu. Image source: Visual China
So, why has China’s ecological civilization construction been so successful? Maginnis shared his observations from four dimensions.
The first is strong political will and top-level leadership. He noted that China’s ecological commitments originate from the highest level, are supported by legislative guarantees, and have formed a governance pattern in which the whole society participates collaboratively.
The second is to insist on large-scale implementation. Taking the systematic restoration of the Min River Basin as an example, 340 small hydropower stations were dismantled, 160 kilometers of natural flowing rivers were restored, and coastal communities were simultaneously connected to a clean energy grid, supporting pollution control, sewage treatment, and sustainable agriculture. The restoration was no longer limited to scattered river sections, but coordinated policies covering the entire basin.
Continuous learning and dynamic optimization are another characteristics of China’s ecological governance. In response to the ecological challenges brought about by hydropower peak regulation, the China Renewable Energy Engineering Research Institute and IUCN have cooperated to break away from the compliance assessment of a single project, evaluate the ecological effectiveness of the entire river basin as a unit, and optimize hydropower planning and management plans.
Open sharing and international cooperation are the values extended outward by this set of practices. Relying on the Nature-Based Solutions Asia Center (NbS Asia Center) and summer schools in many places, sponge cities and other Chinese ecological governance experiences have gone abroad to build an exchange and mutual learning platform for practitioners from various Asian countries.
In terms of marine protection, Maginnis welcomed China’s leading role in the blue economy and the implementation of the Marine Biodiversity Agreement (BBNJ).
"China's achievements provide valuable reference for global nature conservation," Maginnis said.
