Beginning: China's national park system

At the leaders’ summit of the 15th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) on 12 October 2021, China's President Xi Jinping declared that China has officially designated its first group of national parks—the Three-River-Source National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the Hainan Tropical Forests National Park, and the Wuyishan National Park. The five national parks cover a total area of ∼230 000 square kilometers and protect nearly 30% of the key terrestrial wildlife species found in China. Since the establishment of the United States’ Yellowstone National Park in 1872, national parks have been founded in many countries, and some of them have become distinctive ‘national signatures’ and important ecological security shelters. As a large country with rich biodiversity, China now begins to establish its first five national parks, with a total of about 50 planned for the future, and to form a national-park-centric protected-area system. How will national parks change the landscape of China's ecological conservation? Is China well prepared to scientifically establish and administrate national parks? In this panel discussion, six Chinese ecological conservationists introduce the background, plans and challenges of China's national park system, and provide their scientific perspectives. Guangchun Lei [Image: see text] Professor, School of Ecology and Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University Zhiyun Ouyang [Image: see text] Professor, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences Yang Su [Image: see text] Research Fellow, Development Research Center of the State Council of China Rui Yang [Image: see text] Professor, Institute for National Parks, Tsinghua University Yujun Zhang [Image: see text] Professor, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University Keping Ma (Chair) [Image: see text] Professor, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences