Preserving China’s Coastal Wetlands

For many, the calendar year of 2020 (the year of the rat in the lunar calendar) is a year to forget, but as we celebrate World Wetlands Day on February 2, 2021, and prepare to celebrate the Lunar New Year of the ox, it is heartening to report good news: A key wetland site along China’s coast—Luannan Nanpu coastal wetland—has been given formal protected area status.

Since this site’s importance to migratory birds was first discovered, it has taken more than ten years of painstaking scientific study, education, advocacy, political will and teamwork among many organizations, local communities and government to achieve protected area status.

I vividly remember my first visit to Nanpu coastal wetland in Luannan County in Hebei Province. It was August 2011, almost exactly a year after I had arrived to live and work in Beijing. I had been excited to read scientific reports from Yang Hong-yan, a researcher who had been studying red knot and other shorebirds on the Hebei coast. After inquiring about how to reach the site, Hong-yan sent me some very helpful directions and a map. 

That day, on arrival at the sea wall, I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of shorebirds using the mudflats at Nanpu and Beipu. An extract from my notebook reads:

“Big numbers of birds. I estimated 3,000 Black-winged Stilt on one pond. My first ever Asian Dowitchers (an adult and a juvenile) on a small pond just south of the prison. Also c150 Relict Gulls (some of which still in breeding plumage) on the mudflats, Saunders' and Black-tailed Gulls, Great Knot, Red Knot, Far Eastern and Eurasian Curlew, Curlew Sandpiper, Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwit, Common and Spotted Redshank, Common Greenshank, Marsh Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint, Lesser Sand Plover, Kentish and Little Ringed Plovers, Avocet, Grey-tailed Tattler, Common, Wood and Green Sandpiper, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Grey and Pacific Golden Plover, Gull-billed, White-winged, Whiskered, Common and Little Terns, Yellow and Great Bittern and Grey Heron. Long-tailed Shrike and Dark-sided Flycatcher along the sea wall.”

That this was a special and important place for migratory shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF) was immediately obvious. The EAAF is a major ‘super-highway’ for birds spanning 22 countries from Alaska in the US and Siberia in Russia south through China, SE Asia, and as far as Australia and New Zealand. At the heart of the Flyway is the Yellow Sea and Bohai Bay, a vital ‘service station’ for an estimated 50 million waterbirds of 240 species, 22 of which are classified as globally threatened by the IUCN Red List.

With up to 70% of the Yellow Sea’s coastal mudflats having been lost to development in the last few decades, the importance of sites such as Luannan could not be overstated.

The work of local scientists such as Hong-yan and her colleagues first put this area onto the map.  They highlighted the site’s importance to migratory shorebirds by documenting numbers and logging sightings of birds that had been fitted with colored flags in Australia and New Zealand, thus connecting the site to non-breeding grounds in the southern hemisphere.

The journey from that scientific foundation to building a protected area has been long and has overcome many obstacles. 

Perhaps the most important moment was in 2016 when Zhang Qingwei, then governor of Hebei Province, participated in the Beidaihe Coastal Wetlands and Waterfowl Seminar, organized by the Paulson Institute and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, at which he committed to protect the Luannan coastal wetland and several other sites in Hebei province highlighted in the 2015 " Blueprint of Coastal Wetland Conservation and Management in China. "

The Blueprint—a collaboration project between the Paulson Institute, the Convention on Wetlands Management Office, the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Lao Niu Foundation—built on the scientific foundation provided by many scientists such as Hong-yan and her colleagues. The Blueprint made the economic case about the value of coastal wetlands, not only for migratory birds but also in terms of sustainable local incomes, protection from floods and storm surges, sea-level rise, carbon sequestration, and water purification. The Blueprint report identified 180 key coastal wetland habitats for migratory birds across the whole coastal region, including 11 of the most important but unprotected such as Luannan Nanpu wetland in Hebei, and recommended setting up new or expanding existing protected areas to save these key habitats. 

Following the Hebei governor’s commitment in 2016, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Hebei Forestry Department, Luannan County Government, WWF, and the Paulson Institute to take forward the process of establishing a protected area at Luannan. 

Given the importance of allowing the local communities to continue to sustainably harvest shellfish, designing a protected area was not a straightforward process. Under Chinese law, human activities are not allowed in the core area of a nature reserve. Thus, after two years of close collaboration between the local government and other partners, the decision was made in late 2020 to create the Hebei Luannan Nanpu Zuidong Provincial Wetland Park. Wetland parks, although not enjoying the strict protection status of nature reserves, are still legally protected areas and must be managed sustainably. Importantly, the status as a wetland park allows local communities to continue to sustainably harvest shellfish, which is vital for local livelihoods.

Achieving protected area status for Luannan is a significant milestone and paves the way for this site to join 11 other coastal sites as part of a serial nomination for  World Heritage Status . This process is expected to be completed by 2023, with the protected areas joining the most important coastal wetland sites in Yancheng, which were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2019.

Credit must go to the government (central, provincial, and local), Chinese academics, and scientists for making it happen. The Paulson Institute, along with several other national and international organizations such as Heren Foundation, LaoNiu Foundation, Beijing Normal University, BirdLife International, WWF, EAAFP, the New Zealand and Australian governments, and others, is proud to have supported these efforts. The Institute is committed to continuing to support local groups to protect and sustainably manage these vital coastal wetlands to ensure the millions of migratory shorebirds that depend on these sites not only survive, but also thrive, for future generations.

 Terry Townshend  is an Advisor to the Paulson Institute, where he focuses on communications and policy for the Conservation program’s work.