China's national nature reserve network shows great imbalances in conserving the country's mega-diverse vegetation.

The National Nature Reserve (NNR) network forms a central element in China's governmental strategy to conserve the country's vast biodiversity and its varied ecosystems. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of the existing NNR network in protecting China's highly diverse habitats and the fauna and flora they contain has remained unclear. Here, we analyze how comprehensively the existing NNR network protects China's vegetation diversity, identifying potential gaps to inform future NNR designations. Covering ~15.7% of China's land area, the existing nature reserve network contains 18 main vegetation types and 26 sub-types. All main vegetation types are also contained in the National-level Nature Reserves (NNRs), but to highly differing degrees. NNRs cover ~24.0% of China's grasslands, but only ~3.3% of the country's monsoon forests. With regards to main vegetation regions, about 41.4% of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is covered by NNRs, in contrast to only ~4.6% of the region representing warm-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forests. In five main vegetation regions, NNRs cover <10% of the area and are scattered across a highly fragmented network, leading for example to China's highly biodiverse subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests being conserved only in small, isolated NNRs. NNRs also greatly vary in the number of vegetation types they individually comprise, with only 64 NNRs (18.9%) individually containing >50% of the vegetation types in their respective region. Overall, NNR size increases and fragmentation decreases from China's south-east to its western provinces. The resulting, extremely uneven distribution of NNRs across China limits their effectiveness in protection the country's plant diversity treasure trove. The country's NNR network therefore needs significant adjustments to effectively conserve China's valuable natural resources for future generations.

Sun S ，Sang W ，Axmacher JC 《-》

Effectiveness of China's National Forest Protection Program and nature reserves.

There is profound interest in knowing the degree to which China's institutions are capable of protecting its natural forests and biodiversity in the face of economic and political change. China's 2 most important forest-protection policies are its National Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and its national-level nature reserves (NNRs). The NFPP was implemented in 2000 in response to deforestation-caused flooding. We undertook the first national, quantitative assessment of the NFPP and NNRs to examine whether the NFPP achieved its deforestation-reduction target and whether the NNRs deter deforestation altogether. We used MODIS data to estimate forest cover and loss across mainland China (2000-2010). We also assembled the first-ever polygon dataset for China's forested NNRs (n = 237, 74,030 km(2) in 2000) and used both conventional and covariate-matching approaches to compare deforestation rates inside and outside NNRs (2000-2010). In 2000, 1.765 million km(2) or 18.7% of mainland China was forested (12.3% with canopy cover of ≥70%)) or woodland (6.4% with canopy cover <70% and tree plus shrub cover ≥40%). By 2010, 480,203 km(2) of forest and woodland had been lost, an annual deforestation rate of 2.7%. Forest-only loss was 127,473 km(2) (1.05% annually). In the NFPP provinces, the forest-only loss rate was 0.62%, which was 3.3 times lower than in the non-NFPP provinces. Moreover, the Landsat data suggest that these loss rates are overestimates due to large MODIS pixel size. Thus, China appears to have achieved, and even exceeded, its target of reducing deforestation to 1.1% annually in the NFPP provinces. About two-thirds of China's NNRs were effective in protecting forest cover (prevented loss 4073 km(2) unmatched approach; 3148 km(2) matched approach), and within-NNR deforestation rates were higher in provinces with higher overall deforestation. Our results indicate that China's existing institutions can protect domestic forest cover.

Ren G ，Young SS ，Wang L ，Wang W ，Long Y ，Wu R ，Li J ，Zhu J ，Yu DW ... -  《-》

Have China's national forest reserves designated since 1990 conserved forests effectively?

China's forests were severely degraded by human activities during the latter half of the 20th century. Therefore, China enacted ambitious programs of natural forest protection and afforestation to protect and expand forests. Yet it is unclear how the programs, especially the designation of forest reserves, have affected forest cover and fragmentation. We evaluated the effectiveness of China's national forest reserves designated since 1990 in conserving forests, by analyzing four forest metrics (i.e., percentage forest cover, mean forest patch size, mean forest patch radius of gyration, and forest patch cohesion index) derived from a newly produced 30 m annual China land cover dataset from 1990 to 2019. We found that overall forest cover increased and fragmentation decreased from baseline years, when reserves were designated, to 2019 in both reserves and their surrounding areas, and only the increase in forest cover relative to baseline was significantly greater in reserves than in surrounding areas. The designation time of reserves under national protection had no considerable effect on changes in the four metrics, but for zonation, the core zone showed a significantly higher increase in forest patch cohesion index relative to baseline than the buffer and transition zones. Nevertheless, forest cover declined and fragmentation increased in highly forested reserves, suggesting destructive human activities and ineffective management. Thus, forest protection and regeneration programs were moderately successful. We recommend that there is significant improvement needed to ensure greater protection of existing forests and reduction of threats to promote effective management.

Xu Y ，Price M ，Yang B ，Zhang K ，Yang N ，Tang X ，Ran J ，Yi Y ，Wang B ... -  《-》

Evidence of forest restoration success and the conservation value of community-owned forests in Southwest China using dung beetles as indicators.

Sullivan CD ，Slade EM ，Bai M ，Shi K ，Riordan P ... -  《-》

Myanmar's Land Cover Change and Its Driving Factors during 2000-2020.

Wang Y ，Hu Y ，Niu X ，Yan H ，Zhen L ... -  《-》