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On October 12,2021,China officially announced its first five national parks, which are homes to endangered species ranging from the Siberian tigers on the Russian border to the world’s last 30 Hainan black crested gibbons(黑冠长臂猿)in southern China’s tropical rainforest.

By uniting hundreds of protected areas managed by various provinces, the new national park system’s goal is to strengthen conservation under the central authority of the new National Forestry and Grassland Administration(NFGA)

These five parks cover an area two-third the size of the US national park system. The largest, Sanjiangyuan National Park in Qinghai Province, is almost the size of Mississippi.

With such an ambitious plan, there are bound to be challenges. For one the government has to balance the need for the livelihoods of the locals with wildlife conservation. It has not announced a plan to create a permitting system that would regulate how people enjoy nature. What’s more,ecotourism-which is defined as tourism that benefits both locals and their environment-only exists in a fifth of China’s nature reserves.

But there’s hope that the existing ecotourism projects in such nature reserves as Sanjiangyuan National Park and Wolong Nature Reserve will inspire efforts elsewhere in the new park system. Since 2018, Sanjiangyuan National Park has run a community-led tourism program that benefits both locals and snow leopards(豹), the park’s main tourist draw. For $43 a day, visitors can stay with local families, who act as guides to spot these rare “cats” in the wild.

“The community has made all the major decisions, and 100 percent of the income stays in the community. It’s been incredibly successful,” says Marc Brody, who has worked in China since 1994.

NFGA agrees that well-designed ecotourism can improve local ecosystems. It says that a core mission(核心使命)of China’s national parks is to promote eco-civilizationa mission that can be advanced by involving visitors Written into China’s constitution(宪法)in 2012, eco-civilization means scientifically balancing the economic development and the environmental protection.