Mount Fanjing National Nature Reserve in southwest China’s Guizhou Province has been officially included on the Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Green List is a global program established by the IUCN to promote biodiversity conservation based on protected and conserved areas. It serves as a global standard for measuring the management status of such areas.
The inclusion of the Mount Fanjing National Nature Reserve in the IUCN Green List signifies international recognition of its conservation achievements and its significant role in global biodiversity conservation, according to authorities in Tongren City, where the mountain is located.
The IUCN plans to announce the new list of protected and conserved areas included on the Green List for 2024 at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), which is scheduled to be held in Colombia in late October.
Mount Fanjing is a World Heritage Site that covers an area of 775 square kilometers. It provides an important glimpse into geological evolution in southwestern China and serves as an ecological security barrier in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the country’s longest river.
Mount Fanjing boasts a typical and intact ecosystem of the Central Asian subtropical ancient forests, with 7,925 species of wild plants and animals. It is home to many ancient relict plants and rare and endangered species such as the gray snub-nosed monkey and the Fanjingshan fir.
(Cover: A view of Mount Fanjing in Tongren City, Guizhou Province, southwest China. /CFP)