BEIJING: China’s first batch of national parks has achieved notable progress over the past five years, with key ecosystems improving and populations of flagship species steadily increasing, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration said on Monday.
On Oct 12, 2021, China officially established five national parks: Sanjiangyuan National Park, Giant Panda National Park, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park and Wuyishan National Park.
Covering a combined area of 230,000 square kilometers, the five parks have integrated and optimized more than 120 protected areas of various types and levels.
Over the past five years, the parks have advanced the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands and deserts, according to the administration. Measures such as habitat restoration, ecological corridor construction and tighter controls on human activities have helped strengthen the ecological foundations of key regions.
The results have been particularly notable in wildlife conservation, with several flagship species recording significant population increases.
In the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the number of wild Siberian tigers has risen from 27, when the park was established, to 72, while the wild Amur leopard population has increased from 42 to 115, the administration said.
In 2025, rare footage captured a wild tigress with five cubs in the park. Yu Hongxun, deputy director of the Hunchun branch of the park administration, said such a sighting was extremely unusual.
“Three cubs are common for a tigress, while four are already very rare,” Yu said. “A tigress with five cubs is the first such case in the history of wild Siberian tiger and Amur leopard conservation in China.”
In the Sanjiangyuan National Park on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Tibetan antelope population has recovered to more than 70,000, compared with fewer than 20,000 before the pilot national park program began in 2015.
In the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, the Hainan gibbon population has grown to seven groups comprising 44 individuals, making it the only gibbon population in the world that continues to grow, according to the administration.
Efforts to improve habitats have also yielded results in the Giant Panda National Park, where 13 ecological corridors have been established to connect previously isolated populations of wild giant pandas, significantly improving habitat connectivity.
In the Sichuan section of the park, about 22,670 hectares of habitat and roughly 1,330 hectares of ecological corridors have been restored, according to the Sichuan Academy of Giant Panda.
“Habitat restoration for giant pandas is not simply about planting trees. It is about restoring places where giant pandas can move, feed and live,” said Yang Zhisong, deputy president of the academy. “Connecting habitat patches serves as an important bridge for promoting genetic exchange among giant pandas.”
Beyond biodiversity conservation, the five national parks have also helped improve local livelihoods, the administration said. Nearly 50,000 local residents have been employed as ecological rangers, earning between 12,000($1,793) and 21,000 yuan a year.
China has also strengthened the institutional and technological support for national park development. It has released a spatial layout plan for national parks and enacted the National Park Law, the country’s first special law dedicated to national parks.
Monitoring networks using satellite remote sensing, drones, infrared cameras and artificial intelligence have also been established to track ecological changes, wildlife activity and human disturbance.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), China will continue to promote the high-quality development of national parks and steadily establish new ones, the administration said.
It will advance habitat restoration and ecological corridor construction, implement major biodiversity conservation projects, and improve policies on ecological compensation, compensation for wildlife-related damage and commercial services in the parks to further improve local livelihoods. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
