China holds nineteen world natural and heritage-natural mixed sites alongside thirty-four IUCN Green List protected areas, capturing two global leads in ecological conservation.
The achievement emerged on November 10 during a side event themed on ecological civilization and beautiful China practices at the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Antalya, chinanews.com.cn reported.
Stewart Maginnis, deputy director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, shared long-term observations during the session hosted by the Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization Research Center and China News Service.
Maginnis pointed to the Jiangsu Yancheng coastal wetland restoration, where local teams cleared invasive smooth cordgrass and restored twenty thousand hectares of carbon-rich coastal wetlands to strengthen coastal resilience and rebuild habitats for endangered migratory birds.
“800 million people have shaken off extreme poverty and stepped into a moderately prosperous society. For me, this is the starting point of a beautiful China — a truly meaningful beautiful China cannot be separated from common prosperity,” Maginnis said, reflecting on over two decades of front-line cooperation in China.
Maginnis said that even materially affluent societies can face clean air deficits, water shortages, biodiversity loss, and weak ecological resilience. He praised China’s ecological civilization approach as a strategic choice for human-nature coexistence that safeguards ecological foundations while boosting incomes.
Maginnis outlined four dimensions behind the success: high-level political will paired with legislative backing, large-scale implementation across entire river basins such as the Min River, continuous learning and dynamic optimization of engineering projects, and open international sharing through mechanisms like the NbS Asia Center.
“The achievements made by China provide valuable lessons for the global nature conservation cause,” Maginnis told chinanews.com.cn.
