Deep observation | national parks are not "no man's land": to protect, but also to open

The Paper's special commentator Song Jinbo

On October 21, at a press conference of the State Council, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration responded to the question of whether the national park will be open to the public, stressing: "National parks, as the name suggests, are also people's parks, and adhering to the public welfare of the whole people is one of the important concepts of national parks, which must be open to the public", "National parks cannot be built into no man's land, nor is it an isolation area." And said: "One of the purposes of national parks is also to enable the broad masses of people to enjoy the most beautiful and high-quality ecological products of the country through the construction of national parks." ”

National parks are a type of nature reserve in the broad sense. From the concept and practice of human beings having nature reserves to the present, conservation and development have become the internal conflict at its core. Whether the value of a nature reserve can be reflected and whether the work of nature conservation is done well or not depends to a large extent on whether a scientific and reasonable balance can be achieved in this pair of contradictions and conflicts.

The system of natural protected areas, including national parks, was only produced after the development of human social and economic development to modern times, and is the theory and practice obtained in the process of economic and social development, and the problems and conflicts encountered in economic and social development are solved. Specifically, the concept, theory and practice of modern nature conservation arose first because human society has caused unprecedented damage and pressure to the natural environment in the process of industrialization, and several large-scale environmental disasters have occurred, and many wild animals have become extinct or endangered in a short period of time. It is under this premise that human beings begin to reflect on the relationship between man and nature and strive to put it into action. The theory and practice of various nature reserves are not only one way, but they are the same way, and they can generally be classified into this category.

Since the system of natural protected areas was produced in the course of human economic and social development in response to economic development, especially the process of industrialization, the concept of "protection" actually constituted a certain negation and abandonment of the "development" impulse at that time at the beginning of its emergence. Nature, today, we can say that "protection" and "development", scientific protection and sustainable development, are not completely opposed, mutually negative, not insoluble "contradictions", but the concept of "nature protection" was first proposed, no doubt based on the negative understanding that "development leads to the destruction of nature".

Not surprisingly, the inherent conflict between "conservation" and "development" between the system of natural protected areas has continued throughout the history of modern nature conservation. In different countries, at different stages of development, in different political, economic and cultural contexts, this pair of conflicts is sometimes high-pitched and sometimes low-key, but it is certain that the reason why a nature reserve is valuable is that many times it exists and must face such conflicts.

In the development practice of many years, a large number of types of nature reserves with different functions have emerged in countries around the world. Relevant international organizations have been trying to clearly classify these protected areas, but it is clear that there is inevitably an overlap in the function, management and positioning of these different types of protected areas. For example, a typical forest park and a strict nature reserve must have great differences in the degree of management and the division of functional areas, and there will be a considerable degree of overlap. Similarly, although China's long-dominated nature reserve construction system has been trying to unify with the same theory and engineering construction norms, there have been a large number of differences between various types of nature reserves in decades of practice. The development of China's nature reserve system has a strong continuity, and these differences will also exist in the new national park system.

It can be said that the diversity of biodiversity or protected areas itself makes the inherent conflict between conservation and development of protected areas more obvious. Diversity rejects "one-size-fits-all" management, and finding a balance within different types of protected areas requires even more scientific and even artistic management tools. In place A, the appropriate balance scale is not the same in place B, for example, in Chongming, Shanghai, and Changtang, Tibet, it is impossible to use the same balance standard.

The great development of China's nature reserves was after the reform and opening up in the 1980s. In the era when economic development has become the top priority, the development of China's natural protected areas has achieved extremely valuable results and experience, and there are many lessons, once due to the differences in competent units, different regions and different administrative levels, resulting in a lot of chaotic situations in management, it is not uncommon for development to be powerless to protect, or to overemphasize protection and cause development to be affected. Of course, in general, until the national park system began to enter the mainstream vision, the development and management of China's natural protected areas were moving in the direction of standardization and rationalization.

The construction of a national park system in China is a leap forward in the history of china's nature reserve construction. Compared with the previous nature reserve system and other systems, the national park system on the one hand chooses its key points and solves some problems of great value and far-reaching construction of protected areas with national strength, and at the same time, through the introduction and innovation of the system, it has enriched the management space and development space of natural protected areas.

On the whole, Compared with the strict nature reserve management system, China's national park management system has a slightly diluted meaning of "protection", while the tolerance of "development", especially for "public sharing", and the requirements for people's ecological experience reflected through the concept of "park" are stronger. Of course, "dilution" is not unprotected, and the internal area of this strict protection will not be relaxed.

It is in this sense that the State Forestry and Grassland Administration responds to public concerns, expressing first of all that "insisting that the public welfare of the whole people is one of the important concepts of the national park, and it must be open to the public", and emphasizing that "the national park cannot be built into a no-man's land, nor is it an isolated area". The premise of this response is also the innovative development, clearer positioning and more refined management that China's national park system tries to show on the basis of the existing nature reserve system.

China's national park system was first formed at the historical node of economic and social development into a new stage of development, and the model of China's economic and social development and the concept of nature protection in the whole society are facing transformation and upgrading. From the perspective of a community with a shared future for mankind, the construction of the national park system is both a long-standing tradition and a new practice. In the management of national parks, the scale of development and protection, and the scale shared by protection and the people, it is still necessary to find a new balance point in the new era and new development.

Editor-in-Charge: Shen Bin