Shenzhen nurtures 35,000 hectares of wetlands: report

Writer: Chen Siqi  |  Editor: Zhang Chanwen  |  From: Shenzhen Daily  |  Updated: 2023-02-09

Shenzhen nurtures wetlands covering surface area of 35,000 hectares, including 296 hectares of mangrove forests, data from an investigation report on Shenzhen’s wetland resources showed Tuesday.

The report was released during Guangdong’s themed event on wetland restoration. The event was held in Shenzhen on Tuesday.

According to the report, the number of wetland parks in the city hit 15. Shenzhen now has eight mangrove nature reserves, including Futian mangrove reserve and OCT National Wetland Park. During the 13th Five-Year Period (2016-2020), Shenzhen launched and carried out 12 programs for wetland restoration and conservation, with 43.33 hectares of wetlands being restored.

During the event, three wetland parks in Guangdong were granted with honors as national wetland parks, which were entitled by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and Guangdong Provincial Forestry Administration in 2022.

The three national wetland parks are: Kongque Lake National Wetland Park in Kaiping, Shouchang River Mangrove National Wetland Park in Yangjiang and Guangdong Liannan Yao Row Terraces National Wetland Park in Qingyuan.

The event also announced six important provincial wetlands, namely Huazhou Lake and Nansha Coastal Park in Guangzhou, Xinfeng Lugu Lake and Wengyuan Wetland Park in Shaoguan, Dongjiang River in Heyuan and Cuiheng in Zhongshan.

A wetland is one of the most efficient carbon capture and storage systems on the planet.

China will build an international mangrove center in Shenzhen, President Xi Jinping said in a video speech at the opening ceremony of the 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (COP14) last November. Later that month, the COP14 meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland officially passed a draft resolution on building an international mangrove center in Shenzhen.

A view of Futian mangrove wetland. Sun Yuchen

Earlier this month, Shenzhen’s Futian mangrove wetland was designated as one of the Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.

According to the investigation report on Shenzhen’s wetland resources, over the past three decades, Shenzhen has made prominent achievements in wetland conservation, setting up natural reserves, delimiting ecological protection areas and restoring a batch of important wetlands. Shenzhen has started programs to restore its ecological environment and has initially established a wetland conservation management system.

An official from the Shenzhen Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau said that the city has taken measures to manage and protect the city’s wetlands, striving to build an international wetland center and achieving the protection of 50% of wetlands in the city by 2035.