On June 30, nearly 400 delegates, including scientists, reserve managers, government officials, and international representatives, gathered in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, for the 27th General Assembly of the China Biosphere Reserve Network (CBRN), held to mark the 70th anniversary of Dinghushan National Nature Reserve.
A historic milestone with global resonance
Dinghushan is far more than an ordinary protected area. Established on June 30, 1956, after a landmark proposal submitted by five scientists at the First National People's Congress, it is China's very first nature reserve. In 1979, it became one of the country's first three reserves included in UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme.
At the opening ceremony, Zhang Yaping, President of the Chinese National Committee for the MAB Programme, hailed Dinghushan as a "beacon of science-based conservation." He stressed that its seven-decade journey demonstrates that long-term ecological monitoring, coupled with community engagement, can deliver sustained ecological benefits. He urged the CBRN to build on this legacy, making science and public education the dual core drivers of future development.
UNESCO also highlighted the reserve's global significance. Ms. Ai Sugiura, speaking on behalf of the UNESCO East Asia Regional Office, commended China's growing leadership in biosphere conservation. With 36 world biosphere reserves, China now ranks first in Asia. She announced that the 17th East Asian Biosphere Reserve Network Conference will be held at Dinghushan this October, further strengthening its regional role.
She also proposed building a unified East Asian citizen science platform aligned with UNESCO's Open Science and AI Ethics frameworks. The forward-looking initiative drew strong interest among young researchers in attendance.
The numbers behind the story
To understand the ecological achievements made over 70 years of protection, audiences can start with the figures presented by Zhaoqing Mayor Xu Xiaoxiong in his keynote address. He outlined the reserve's progress across three major dimensions: ecology, science, and socio-economic development.
Ecologically, Dinghushan's core forest type, south subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest, has expanded from roughly 1,900 mu (127 hectares) in the 1950s to 3,300 mu (220 hectares) today, an increase of about 70%. Forest coverage has remained at about 98%. The reserve is home to 1,948 species of wild higher plants, nearly one-third of Guangdong's total flora, as well as 47 mammal species, 277 bird species, and 1,648 insect species. The reappearance of the Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) after more than three decades of absence is an intuitive indicator of ecosystem recovery.
Scientifically, researchers at Dinghushan have published more than 3,100 academic papers. A landmark study published in Science in 2006 overturned the long-held view that mature forests cease carbon absorption, rewriting global carbon-cycle simulation models. Researchers here have won two Second-Class National Natural Science Awards. The most recent award went to Yan Junhua in 2023 for his work on land-surface carbon sequestration, underscoring the value of uninterrupted long-term ecological observation.
In socio-economic terms, the reserve has helped lift the annual per capita income of nearby villagers from less than 1,000 yuan to more than 30,000 yuan today through eco-tourism, tea gardens, and homestays, providing a tangible example of "protecting ecological resources while improving residents' livelihoods."
A living laboratory for China's protected-area system
What makes Dinghushan's approach replicable? In the 1980s, it pioneered a three-zone system covering core, buffer, and transition zones, which was later incorporated into national regulations. In 1999, it became the first protected area in China to quantify negative oxygen ions in the air, sparking a nationwide eco-tourism trend. More fundamentally, the reserve established a community co-management committee that provides ecological compensation, skills training, and industrial support. The Zhaoqing Municipal Government has sustained dedicated investment in this mechanism, including a dedicated public security presence since 1955 and an intelligent fire-prevention system that reduces warning response times to under five minutes.
A northern contrast: Daqingshan's candid reflection
For a complementary perspective, Niu Xishan, director of Daqingshan National Nature Reserve in Inner Mongolia, which joined the World Biosphere Reserve network only last year, offered a frank comparison. He described the two reserves as "one in the north and one in the south; one large, one small; one newly designated, one time-honored." Covering 388,900 hectares and 11 counties, Daqingshan faces greater coordination challenges. "Compared with Dinghushan," Niu admitted, "our management is still quite extensive, with much lower levels of scientific and refined management."
Yet he outlined concrete steps: partnering with courts and prosecutors to establish judicial protection zones, building eco-policing stations, and providing more than 650 forest ranger posts for former herders. In 2025, the reserve received 2.8 million eco-tourists and generated 79 million yuan in revenue. The case shows that Dinghushan's model of co-management and regulated tourism can be successfully replicated even in arid northern regions.
The road ahead
Behind the data are the people who walk the trails every day. Zhang Zekun, a young assistant engineer at Dinghushan and an observer with the MAB Youth Innovation Group, recalled a memorable moment: capturing infrared-camera footage of a Chinese pangolin that had not been seen for more than 30 years, followed by a mother pangolin carrying her pup. "That was proof that our efforts are paying off," he said.
Unlike older generations of rangers, Zhang noted that his generation uses a three-dimensional monitoring network consisting of infrared cameras, acoustic sensors, and smart data platforms to track species in real time. "We're not just recorders of biodiversity; we're practitioners of coexistence," he added. He pledged to share Dinghushan's monitoring protocols with other reserves through the MAB Youth Innovation Network.
As the CBRN expands to 229 member reserves across all 31 provinces, the challenge is no longer only protection, but integration into China's national park system. The conference issued the Zhaoqing Initiative, calling for "integrated optimization, unified and efficient systems, smart technological supervision, and diverse co-governance" as the optimal path forward. Zhaoqing's next steps include deepening community co-management, expanding environmental education infrastructure, and exploring carbon-trading mechanisms, all aligned with the "Beautiful China" initiative.
Seventy years ago, five scientists signed a proposal that reshaped China's ecological conservation cause. Today, Dinghushan stands not only as a "green jewel on the Tropic of Cancer," but also as living evidence that scientific research, community participation, and sustained policy support can achieve harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.
The 28th CBRN General Assembly will be hosted by the Bogda World Biosphere Reserve in Xinjiang in 2027.
Reporter: Guo Zedong
Photo: Guo Zedong
