Media: Hainan to actively promote diversification of flora and fauna

By / TASS / Updated: 17:32,22-October-2021

Aerial shot of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park-CFP

HAIKOU /China/, October 21. /TASS/. In the coming years, authorities of the southern Chinese province of Hainan plan to actively promote the diversification of fauna and flora on the territory of the Tropical Rainforest National Park located in the central part of the island, as reported by the Hainan Daily.

"Hainan will restore [natural] ecosystems, ensure comprehensive control of relevant processes, and contribute to the diversification of fauna [and flora]," the newspaper's reviewers said, commenting on the outcome of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which was held last week in the southwestern PRC city of Kunming.

According to the published data, the endangered species of wild flora and fauna of the southernmost province of China, which are need of increased protection by competent state agencies, include a small number of local gibbons, as well as the island’s red deer, the Asian small-clawed otter, Doritis pulcherrima (Doritis orchid), tree ferns. Rare trees belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae family such as the Hopea hainanensis, and a small subtropical tree with white-pink flowers called Chinese Bretschneidera sinensis have also made the list.

"Tropical forests have the greatest natural diversity, with half of the animal and plant species found on our planet living there," said Xing Fuwu, a leading specialist at the South China Botanical Garden (Guangzhou) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He noted that the future of most flora and fauna, which should be considered "indispensable links in the food chain," depends on the success of the international community's measures to preserve diversity.

As Chinese experts have repeatedly pointed out, every living organism is a "gene bank" closely linked to its environment. Thus, all of the Earth's inhabitants "are in a causal relationship with each other that most people are not even aware of.

Nature on a tropical island

Statistics show that the area of forests covering Hainan Island has increased more than 1.6 times, to 21.3 thousand square kilometers (about 62% of the territory) since the establishment of the eponymous Province in 1988. According to local authorities, more than 71.5 million people have taken part in the greening campaign over the past 30 years, planting more than 300 million trees on the island.

The central part of the region is a national park with an area of 4.2 thousand square kilometers. The Tropical Rainforest National Park has over 3,600 plant species and more than 540 vertebrate species. Hainan has about 23% of all flora and fauna protected by the Chinese government.

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