The Development Model of Xixi Wetland

In fact, many countries in the world have wrestled with this problem. Wetlands shrinkage doesn’t only happen in China and is not a problem that can’t be solved. With patience and hard work, wetlands protection and restoration is achievable.

In 2005, the first national wetland park, Xixi National Wetland Park, was opened to visitors. Covering 11.5 square kilometers, its water surface makes up 70 percent of the park’s area, with 2,773 ponds of various sizes. Here the picturesque waterways that twist through it reveal tranquil rural landscapes and elegant scenery.

However, in 2003, the Xixi Wetland housed about 530,000 residents. The water was seriously polluted with sewage, and the trash woes caused by house construction and farming also placed an unbearable burden on the local ecological environment.

Shan Jinhua, director of the administrative office of the management committee of the Xixi National Wetland Park, cannot recall the environment conditions without obvious distress: the watercourses were filled with pig feces and silt and the boats all got stranded in it.

Many real estate developers had their eyes on the area. “If the relevant departments had not interfered and taken protection measures, the wetlands would already be history,” said Wu Ming, director of Hangzhou Bay Wetlands Research Station affiliated with the SFA. According to Wu, the land price at that time was RMB 10 million per mu (1 hectare equals to 15 mu), and the houses built on the land could be sold at more than RMB 15,000 per square meter. The profits are hugely tempting.

The turning point came in 2003. The local government in Hangzhou mobilized 6.5 million citizens to participate in a campaign for wetlands protection and restoration. All the 2,226 households moved out of the wetland area and relocated into government-built apartments. By government arrangement, part of those people helped to complete restoration work such as renovating pond bases, replanting wetland plants, caring for persimmon trees and cleaning up watercourses. Then after the Xixi National Wetland Park was established, they began to work in the park itself, protecting its eco-environment and offering tourism services.

In just a few years, the Xixi Wetland, which had been an agricultural area for over 1,800 years, got a new life – with the people’s blessing and through their efforts.

In fact there were two plans for developing the Xixi Wetland: one emphasized wetlands tourism development and the other focused on protection.

Problems with the first plan relate to the huge numbers of tourists swarming into the wetland and the tourism-related construction, the eco-environment would be under too much pressure and likely fall further into decline. But people also questioned Plan B: “Can protection without any utilization bring to Xixi Wetland a course of sustainable development?”

Under such circumstances, a plan that balanced environmental protection and wetland utilization had to be created – establishing a wetland park where urban people could get away from bustling city life and learn more about wetlands, and also where rural dwellers could garden and raise fish. So, in order to preserve the ecological environment, the number of visitors to the park was capped at 10,000 per day.

The resulting development model for Xixi Wetlands has been widely praised and introduced to many other places all over the country. To date, 100 national wetland parks and over 120 regional wetland parks have been established in China.

Besides governments, more and more enterprises have joined to build wetlands parks. “They are attractive to tourists because there they can see natural scenery and get more familiar with the wildlife,” says Yan Chenggao, vice director of Wetlands Preservation and Management Center of the SFA. “We should make use of the economic value of wetlands that are associated with recreational and commercial functions, while allowing their natural functions to be reclaimed,” Yan adds.

Tough to Strike a Balance

“The wetland park is indeed a good model. People going to the parks will get to understand the importance of their conservation. However, establishing such parks is not the ultimate solution for China’s reserves,” says Chen Kelin, and clarifies, “Now China has 36.2 million hectares of natural wetlands and 38.4 million hectares of man-made wetlands, merely 415,000 hectares have been built into wetland parks.” According to Chen, wetland protection in China mainly depends on the efforts of the 550 wetlands nature reserves, but those sanctuaries also face problems.

“For the local governments with jurisdiction, promoting balanced development between economic growth and wetlands conservation is still very difficult,” stated Chen Kelin. “A systematic ecological compensation scheme hasn’t been established, which makes it hard to carry out the wetland conservation work,” Chen explains.

Wang Zhonghai, director of the Wetlands Conservation Center of Liaoning Province, points out that it is unfair to sacrifice the development rights of local people; therefore to protect the wetlands, a certain amount of compensation should be directed to locals.

“Also there are contradictions between wetlands protection departments and local governments. Wetlands protection departments bear the task of protecting wetlands, but local governments own the wetland and have the right to use the land as they wish. So when local farmers grow crops or the local government approves construction on a wetland, the related protection authorities can do nothing to stop them,” says Wang Zhonghai.

In addition, China still hasn’t set up a complete legal liability system. The wetlands protection departments often find it difficult to solve the problems existing laws don’t cover.