Image of Photo of Professor Zhiyun Ouyang

China biodiversity and conservation: status, challenges and opportunities

12 October 2022 12.00 - 13.30
Add to Calendar12/10/2022 12:0012/10/2022 13:30Europe/LondonChina biodiversity and conservation: status, challenges and opportunitieshttps://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk//events/china-biodiversity-and-conservation-status-challenges-and-opportunitiesVirtual seminarfalseDD/MM/YYYY15Jesus Collegeevent_11827confirmed
Virtual seminar

Professor Zhiyun Ouyang, Professor and Director, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, will deliver a lecture on biodiversity and conservation in China. The lecture will be followed by a question and answer session.

China is one of the mega-countries in biodiversity in the world. China preserves almost all types of ecosystems, including forests, grassland, wetlands, desert, tundra, and coral reef, where 43,000 species of vascular plants, and more than 7,000 species of vertebrate live. Like other areas of the world, biodiversity in China is threatened by land use change, extensive logging, harvesting or hunting, habitat fragmentation and climate change. Thousands of plants and wildlife were endangered. Since the 1950s, China has set up more than 12,000 sites of protected areas, but these protected areas are not well delineated to protect either biodiversity or key ecosystem services. To protect biodiversity and secure the provision of ecosystem services, China has launched a systematic approach to mainstream biodiversity and ecosystem services, including re-building PAs systems, a natural forest protection program, and a cropland return to forest /grassland /wetland program.

Dr Zhiyun Ouyang is the director and professor of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the President of the Ecological Society of China, and international member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Dr Zhiyun Ouyang is an ecologist recognised for his work on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and natural capital, and for advancing pioneering, science-based policies for sustainable development. He led the National Ecosystem Assessment and Ecosystem Services Mapping in China, identifying the critical regions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services at the national scale. His work has underpinned innovation in China’s ecological protection policies, including key ecological function conservation areas (EFCAs) of the country; ecological protection red line planning; and new systems of national parks. His work is a key basis for investments in improving both natural capital and human well-being, such as through ecological financial transfer payments (ETPs), which have benefited hundreds of millions of rural people living in ecologically important areas. He has pioneered a new metric, Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP), to evaluate nature’s contributions to people, and to track the performance of policies designed to secure people and nature. GEP is now widely used in China, has been adopted as an accounting indicator for valuation of ecosystem asset and services by the United Nations Statistical Commission.

This is one of the lectures in the on-going China Forum Seminar series, hosted by the China Forum, Jesus College. The lectures, given by eminent speakers, cover a broad range of topics and disciplines.

Booking

This is a virtual seminar. Attendance is free. Advance booking is required by emailing: china-forum@jesus.cam.ac.uk.  Priority will be given to members of Jesus College and the University of Cambridge.