Build up conservation research capacity in China for biodiversity governance

Perspective https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1253-z Build up conservation research capacity in China for biodiversity governance Peng-Fei Fan 1,2 ✉, Li Yang 1 ✉, Yang Liu 2,3 ✉ and Tien Ming Lee 1,2,3 ✉ To achieve the grand vision of ‘Ecological Civilization’ and to build a more sustainable Belt and Road Initiative, China’s conservation policies must be underpinned by research. However, recent institutional and vertebrate conservation scientists’ publication data suggest that China has a growing conservation research capacity deficit. China lacks a pipeline for the training and development of conservation scientists locally and abroad. The network of active conservation scientists is rapidly shrinking and institutions are exhibiting signs of academic inbreeding. Career advancement policies are perversely incentivized away from practical conservation research, thereby constraining capacity building. Comparative data indicate that China severely lags behind the United States and United Kingdom in research quality and capacity. We outline possible recommendations that include developing a different performance evaluation system, promoting training and international exchanges, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration, and fostering international collaborative networks for China-based conservation scientists. For global biodiversity governance, China must act to make up for considerable shortfalls in conservation research capacity and research collaborative networks. A s one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, China supports an exceptionally rich biodiversity including nearly 3,000 vertebrates (excluding fish), of which over 20% (or 642 species) are found nowhere else in the world1. Following decades of rapid economic development, China now faces serious environmental and biodiversity conservation issues2–4. Of the known species that were assessed in the Red List of China’s vertebrates (excluding fish), over 20% (637 species) were listed as either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered (26% of mammals, 11% of birds, 29% of reptiles and 43% of amphibians)5. To balance economic development and environment protection, an ambitious national plan for ‘Ecological Civilization’ has been proposed. Ecological Civilization states that a good ecological environment is the most beneficial for human well-being and emphasizes that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets”6. The plan has the goal of achieving human development progress through learning to coexist with nature by promoting sustainability. Globally, China’s most ambitious development plan yet, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to promote economic development and inter-regional connectivity of roughly half of the world’s population across more than 130 countries, may impact global biodiversity conservation since many of these BRI countries are biodiversity-rich as well7–10. To ensure sustainable development, China recently committed to forming the BRI International Green Development Coalition aimed at greening BRI investments11,12. Considering recent progress, China could potentially drive long-term green and sustainable development and help many of the participating countries meet their targets for the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and therefore shape the global biodiversity conservation outcome over the next few decades12. Ambitious policies require conservation research capacity In order to achieve Ecological Civilization, China has increased investment in natural capital and has contributed substantially to improvements in most ecosystem services13. China has also established a more cohesive system for national protected area management by reforming and reorganizing various related agencies, so as to align goals, lessen conflicts, and remove administrative redundancy14,15. However, China’s environmental investment programmes generally aim to reduce natural disaster risk by restoring forests and grasslands, which lacks a direct link to biodiversity conservation13,16. In addition to the direct use benefits provided by ecosystems such as food, fuel and other goods for consumption, species are crucial to the stability and function of ecosystems. Species also provide non-use values consisting of existence, aesthetic, bequest and intrinsic values. As such, we cannot overlook species and biodiversity conservation in the era of Ecological Civilization17. Increasingly, China has been taking on key conservation leadership roles. As a high-profile example, Xinsheng Zhang from China was elected as the president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2016. The city of Kunming in Yunnan Province was to have hosted the Fifteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in 2020, though this has now been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, China’s contribution of species conservation scientists to global conservation mechanisms, such as the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), remains relatively low. Presently, no Chinese scientists are Chairs, Co-Chairs or Red-List Authority Coordinators of the 53 IUCN SSC vertebrate specialist groups where China is a range state (that is, 21 mammal, 19 bird, and 13 amphibian and reptile groups) and 13 disciplinary groups18. As documented, there are only 37 expert contributors from China for the IPBES assessments (for comparison, the United Kingdom has 54)19. This is concerning because the dearth of experts in key positions may signal shortfalls in conservation training and research capacity. School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. 2School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China. 3State Key Laboratory of Biological Control, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. ✉e-mail: ; ; ; 1 1162 Nature Ecology & Evolution | VOL 4 | September 2020 | 1162–1167 | www.nature.com/natecolevol Perspective NaTURE ECology & EvolUTIon Vertebrate conservation as a case study Across all species groups, vertebrates have received the most attention in both research and conservation. In 2016, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China released a Red List of China’s Vertebrates more than a decade after the first China Species Red List was published5. Although some iconic species, such as the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) which has received massive conservation and research efforts resulting in a population increase of nearly 17% from 2004 to 201520, many others have become extinct or extirpated in China5. For instance, the northern white-cheeked gibbon (Nomascus leucogenys) received far less research emphasis and became extirpated recently in China21. Regional conservation research involving China-based scientists appeared to benefit and (...truncated)