National parks playing crucial protection role

The first nature reserve in China was established in Guangdong province in 1956. Since then, the country has built a large number of such reserves, along with wetland and forest parks.

In 2013, the central government officially promoted the concept of building a national park network to protect the country's ecological systems, releasing a pilot plan two years later.

Construction was approved for 10 pilot national parks covering more than 220,000 square kilometers－the first being Three-River-Source National Park in Qinghai province.