What are the protection policies for wetland resources in China?
Although the country has introduced some policies to protect wetland resources and achieved some results, it is unable to effectively scientifically protect wetland resources. The road to protecting wetland resources in China is still long. In future wetland protection, administrative, legal, and economic measures must be taken to form an effective protection system and achieve coordinated and sustainable development of wetland development and protection.
1. Increase the construction of wetland conservation areas
In the current situation where wetland resources are seriously threatened and damaged, and wetland management institutions and laws need to be improved, the top priority is to protect some typical wetland ecosystems, biodiversity, rare and endangered species, typical natural landscapes, and natural historical sites, delineate protection areas, and formulate protection regulations to enable these wetland habitats to be protected and restored as soon as possible. Practice has shown that establishing protected areas is the most proactive, direct, and effective measure to protect wetlands. It is necessary to continue to strengthen the construction of wetland protected areas and incorporate important wetlands into the protection management system through the establishment of protected areas. Since the 1980s, China has realized the importance of protecting wetlands and sustainable activities of ecological resources. Various regions have successively established nature reserves with wetland ecosystems as the main protection objects. As of December 2005, 473 types of wetland nature reserves have been built, protecting 17.15 million hectares of natural wetlands, accounting for 45% of the total wetland area. The wetland resources and habitats in these areas have been well protected and restored. In order to further strengthen wetland protection work, the State Council approved the National Wetland Protection Engineering Plan in 2003. The overall goal is to complete the restoration of 1.4 million hectares of wetland ecological governance by 2030, establish 53 national wetland protection and rational utilization demonstration zones, and reach 713 national wetland protection zones and 80 internationally important wetlands. This will effectively protect more than 90% of natural wetlands and enter a virtuous cycle of wetland protection and rational utilization in China, Fully leverage the functions and benefits of wetland ecosystems to achieve sustainable utilization of wetland resources. While striving to implement work plans, the government should also pay attention to the continuous maintenance and management of established nature reserves. It is necessary to improve management institutions, equip relevant personnel, increase funding investment, and truly put the protected areas on a normal track of protection, management, necessary scientific research, popular science education, and breeding of rare animal and plant resources.
2. Establish and improve the legal system for wetland protection
At present, there is no specialized wetland protection law in China. In the past decade, China has promulgated a series of laws and regulations related to natural resources and ecological environment protection. Among them, forests and oceans have been protected through legislation. However, so far, the specialized provisions in wetland protection are mainly the "China Wetland Protection Action Plan" jointly formulated by 17 departments of the State Council. In addition, laws and regulations on wetland resource protection are rare both nationally and locally. The existing laws and regulations mainly focus on the protection of land and marine resources, animal and plant resources, and the construction and management of nature reserves, but lack systematic and coordinated protection of wetland resources.
The legislation on wetland resource protection is the key to coordinating the development, utilization, protection, and governance of wetland resources, constructing and improving China's natural resource legal system, and ensuring the sustainable development of wetland resources. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify and unify the concept and management objectives of wetland resources through legal means, and formulate laws and regulations suitable for regulating various behaviors of wetland resource protection and rational utilization.
In addition, the existing wetland resource protection area, boundaries, management institutions, funding sources, and list of protected species should be regulated in the form of regulations, providing operational legal basis for wetland resource protection and rational utilization. Wetland resource management procedures should be determined in legal form, so that wetland protection work can go on a systematic, standardized, and scientific track, and be in line with international wetland protection.
3. Adopt wetland compensation mechanism
At present, in order to effectively protect wetland resources, the Chinese government has widely established nature reserves and strictly limited the utilization of wetland resources. Although this practice has a good effect on wetland protection, it also makes it impossible to realize the traditional rights and interests of the people in the wetland area. As the demands for livelihood and development continue to grow, the contradiction between the development of the people in the wetland area and the protection of the wetland continues to intensify, and effective measures must be taken to solve this problem. Due to the fact that wetland ecological service functions are products that cannot be provided by the market, they should be produced as public goods that require necessary institutional guarantees from the government. However, as a developing country, China's government financial capacity is limited, and the current investment level is difficult to meet the needs of wetland protection and management. It is necessary to provide sustainable financial support for wetland resource protection through other funding channels.
In the practice of forestry protection in China, a system arrangement in the ecological benefit compensation fund system has been adopted, which compensates the affected traditional equity holders and rewards contributors, and has been proven to be very effective. So, similar measures can be taken for the protection of wetland resources, establishing a comprehensive wetland ecological benefit compensation system. This can not only enable the people in the wetland protection area to obtain a certain income through reasonable development of wetland resources, but also use the compensation funds collected from wetland beneficiaries for wetland protection, establish a "utilization feedback protection" mechanism, and solve the problem of insufficient investment in wetland resource protection by the country.
4. Strengthen international cooperation
The experience of wetland protection in recent decades has shown that only close cooperation and joint efforts among various countries and international organizations can do a good job in wetland protection. With the increasing awareness of the importance of wetland resources among countries around the world, international cooperation in protecting wetland resources is also strengthening. The protection and rational utilization of wetlands are increasingly receiving high attention from countries around the world. China officially joined the Convention on Wetlands in July 1992 and included the protection and rational use of wetlands as a priority development area in China's Agenda 21 and China's Action Plan for Biodiversity Conservation. This undoubtedly plays an important role in promoting wetland conservation work in China. China still needs to strengthen its contacts with relevant wetland convention institutions, international organizations, and relevant countries, effectively fulfill the responsibilities and obligations clearly defined in relevant international conventions and agreements, actively engage in international cooperation, strengthen international exchanges, and strive to learn from the beneficial experiences of relevant countries and international organizations in wetland protection, in order to promote the development of China's wetland resource protection cause.
5. Strengthen scientific research on wetland resource protection
With the increasingly serious problem of wetland degradation, starting from the gradual restoration and reconstruction of degraded wetland ecosystems, promoting the ecological restoration of threatened wetland species, and ultimately rebuilding a healthy wetland ecosystem, the scientific practice of promoting the protection of degraded wetlands through a combination of scientific research and wetland ecological governance, restoration technology, and degraded wetland governance has attracted extensive attention from scholars, However, there is still a significant gap between the research level in China and some developed countries internationally, and the hardware and software conditions for the restoration and reconstruction of degraded wetlands are relatively backward. The relevant national departments should further enhance their understanding of the seriousness of wetland degradation, provide more support in research projects and funding, and integrate resources, invest manpower and material resources in various scientific research and exploration of ecological restoration and reconstruction of degraded wetlands.
In the research of wetland protection, high-tech should be fully utilized, such as conducting a series of studies on wetland spatial planning, decision-making, and rational utilization through the characteristics of wide observation range, large amount of information, fast acquisition of information, and short update cycle of RS, as well as the spatial analysis ability of GIS and the positioning function of GPS.
6. Strengthen the publicity efforts for wetland protection
Due to the late introduction of the concept of wetlands in China, many people have mentioned that wetlands are still associated with wasteland and wasteland. Some local decision-makers and the public lack a correct understanding of the social, economic, and ecological value of wetlands, have weak awareness of wetland protection, weak legal awareness, only focus on short-term interests, ignore long-term interests, and arbitrarily destroy wetland resources. However, the current promotion and education on wetland protection are relatively lagging behind, with insufficient popularization, breadth, and depth. Therefore, it is important to make full use of media such as radio, internet, television, and newspapers, and to use various public places, exhibition halls, and museums to display pictures, specimens, and physical objects. Citizens should be educated and educated to understand that wetland protection is a cause that benefits humanity, the present, and the future. This will enhance the public's awareness of wetland protection.
Governments at all levels should also incorporate the protection of wetland resources into important content of citizen legal education and spiritual civilization construction, promote the importance and necessity of protecting wetland resources and relevant laws and regulations, and strengthen and improve public awareness of protecting and rational utilization of wetlands.
