US-China Environmental Fund

Conservation Planning

USCEF’s Conservation Planning Program offers a powerful approach to strengthening stewardship and conservation of China’s natural and cultural resources in protected areas. The country's World Heritage sites, national parks, nature reserves and historic monuments all have special meaning around the world. And resource managers, agencies, private companies, and community leaders all benefit when China's protected areas are well designed and protected.

Presenting and explaining these protected areas in a meaningful way to visitors is the best means of both safeguarding them for the future and integrating conservation with economic development. USCEF draws on four different strategies to achieve success: Integrated Master Plans, Model Parks, Building Management Capacity, and Community-Based Biodiversity Conservation.

Four Conservation Strategies

Integrated Master Plans
Model Parks
Building Management Capacity - Workshops, Training, Leadership
Community-Based Biodiversity Conservation

Integrated Master Plans

Increasing interest in China’s protected areas is accompanied by higher visitation and rapid economic development. To integrate conservation with economic development requires the articulation of a broader, long-term vision. Bringing together U.S. and Chinese professionals with protected area resource managers, USCEF works collaboratively to design Integrated Master Plans to guide future development.

USCEF Master Plan Project Example: ABA Prefecture -- Preserving Heritage Amid Rapid Tourism Growth

Aba Prefecture – a predominantly Tibetan region (ethnic composition of Aba is 52% Tibetan, 27% Han, 18% Qiang, and 3% Hui) – is undergoing a period of profound change due to unprecedented development of a tourism economy.

Previously isolated, Tibetan communities are suddenly interacting with the outside world due to historic development of new highways and soaring tourist visitation. Since the national logging ban for the upper Yangtze River watershed was instituted in Aba Prefecture in 1999, tourism has sky-rocketed. Just before the logging ban, tourism in Aba Prefecture was 900,000 (slightly more than Aba’s total population of 840,000) and total tourism income was US $56 million. Three years later, total visitation soared to 2.84 million and tourism revenue increased to US $193 million, accounting for nearly 20% of Aba’s total GDP.

Facing profound changes from rapid development, USCEF has initiated a comprehensive planning program for a few Tibetan communities in Aba Prefecture to help them conserve cultural and nature resources. USCEF has launched exploratory discussions with the Wolong Nature Reserve, neighboring Four Sisters Mountain National Park, and Aba County – selecting communities that are 90% Tibetan.

Based upon the interests of these local Tibetan communities and officials within Aba Prefecture, USCEF is investigating elements for a regional ecotourism master plan for the area northwest of Chengdu, capitol of Sichuan Province. Complimenting this planning effort for local communities, USCEF is also working with a large Tibetan enterprise that wants to establish an ecotourism corridor along main highway routes in northern Aba Prefecture.

Specific planning activities for these Tibetan communities in Aba Prefecture began in March 2004, when USCEF coordinated a large mission of 10 U.S. environmental and planning professionals. Building upon the organization’s strong foundation at the Wolong Nature Reserve, USCEF was invited to review and help detail the Master Plan for Four Sisters National Park in collaboration with the Sichuan Provincial National Park Administration.

Strong working relations with prefecture and local government units have been established with the assistance of David Bleyle, the previous U.S. Consul General stationed in Chengdu, who is now serving as a senior advisor to USCEF. A highlight of the March mission was the reception USCEF received in Aba County -- where local officials called USCEF’s site visit “a very important historic event for Aba County.” USCEF Vice President Tom Lamb and colleagues were the first foreign visitors to Aba County in decades, shortly after Aba County was opened to foreign guests on Feb. 24, 2004.

To help these targeted Tibetan communities prepare their own plans for ecotourism development, USCEF has recruited the strong support of many U.S. planning professionals and architects. During a period of profound change, the contribution of these technical planning services will empower these Tibetan communities to help preserve their culture and to promote their economic self-sufficiency through the establishment of Tibetan owned and managed enterprises that are linked to the tourism economy.

Example: Wolong (Giant Panda) Nature Reserve

USCEF spent two years helping Wolong articulate its vision for the future through a series of planning workshops. The result is an Integrated Master Plan that will guide the renovation of the existing Center with natural panda enclosures and new educational exhibits at China’s premier Giant Panda Nature Reserve.

Wolong Giant Panda Breeding Center Renovation – Phase One (on-going 1 year project) – 2004: Following the completion of the Giant Panda Interpretive Master Plan for the Wolong Breeding Center, the State Forestry Administration, which oversees the reserve, granted Wolong US$500,000 to renovate the Center as per Phase One of USCEF’s Interpretive Master Plan. USCEF was asked to design and provide construction oversight for this phase of renovation providing new natural enclosures and Interpretive elements.

The construction for this phase is planned to be complete in early June 2004 at which time USCEF is planning a design workshop for the final design of interpretive elements that were conceptualized in the approved Master Plan that will provide the visitor with education benefits and stewardship awareness.

Conservation Training Center (on-going 2 year project) – 2004: Following two years helping Wolong articulate its vision for the future through a series of planning workshops, USCEF is currently planning, designing and programming the creation of a new International Training Facility that will become a model for sustainable development by producing revenue streams for ongoing conservation programs.

USCEF is currently revising the International Training Facility plans and designs to respond to current needs and interest to provide a true eco-tourism facility with education and programmatic activities and programs in the Wolong Valley. With the construction of an ecolodge and the intensive educational, training and research programs at Wolong these will give USCEF a regional base of operations.

Conservation Training Center Regional Architecture Survey (on-going 2 year project) – 2004:Working together on a collaborative planning process, USCEF and the Wolong Administration are using indigenous architecture whenever possible for new construction within the nature reserve. Accordingly, USCEF architects surveyed the region for historic and relevant architectural styles that might be adapted for the renovation of Wolong’s breeding center and for the new international institute and train facility. The architecture of the Tibetan and Qiang people was the focus of this study.

Model Parks

Strong environmental leadership is best demonstrated through successful projects. To demonstrate the value of improving the design and programming of China’s protected areas, USCEF builds teams of park experts to create new management strategies for popular tourist destinations, such as the Great Wall at Badaling. To make a project possible, USCEF functions as a bridge, providing vision and leadership to achieve tangible site specific improvements, coordinating technical inputs of U.S. experts, organizing in-country logistical support, and seed funding to launch project activities.

USCEF helps Chinese partners gain access to technical assistance and project funding through a catalyst approach. Public-private cost sharing arrangements, leveraging contribution of in-kind expertise, and strong project planning help maximize project results and benefits. Research, translation, and planning from USCEF's Beijing office make it possible to create long-lasting collaborative partnerships that result in the transfer of ideas and experience.

Example: International Friendship Forest at Great Wall

USCEF’s flagship Conservation Planning project is a model interpretive park that balances conservation with tourism development in a dramatic valley along the western edge at Badaling. In partnership with the Badaling Special Zone Administration and ConocoPhillips, USCEF coordinated the design and construction of the "International Friendship Forest," including the park's educational signage that explains the significance of the Badaling Wall in Chinese history, culture and environment. The park formally opened in October of 2003.

Building Management Capacity - Workshops, Training and Leadership Exchange

Park based visitor programs can forge emotional and intellectual connections to China’s cultural and natural heritage that foster a stewardship ethic to help protect China’s threatened resources. As some of the world’s most unique and spectacular tourist destinations experience unprecedented growth in popularity, visitor programming is a positive means of transmitting messages of stewardship and preservation.

USCEF Capacity Project Examples:

"Interpret China" Workshops on Interpretive Skills and Planning
Celebrating Beijing's Heritage/2008 Olympics
US-China Park Leadership Delegations

Together with The National Association of Interpretation (a U.S. professional association with 4500 members), USCEF is developing a long-term capacity building program titled “Interpret China.” This project focuses on training workshops to build the capacity of Chinese professionals to improve on-site informal education programs at parks, nature reserves, historic sites, and zoos throughout China. In 2004, USCEF and Beijing Parks Bureau will conduct interpretive training as part of an on-site design workshop where international experts from The National Association for Interpretation join USCEF and our Beijing partners at the selected cultural site to design educational signage.

USCEF is working with the Beijing Parks Bureau to prepare for the 2008 Summer Olympics by creating site plans and interpretative programs for Beijing’s major parks. To date, most of Beijing's cultural sites have surprisingly little or no “interpretive” signage—the type of educational signs (educational or historical story boards) that are commonly found at American national parks and monuments. In 2004, USCEF will coordinate a site planning workshop to create a new entrance for the Beijing Botanical Gardens.

USCEF also facilitates personnel exchanges between US and Chinese park professionals. China participants include members from the national level - Ministry of Construction, National Park Administration, and from the provincial level - Sichuan Parks Department, Yunnan Parks Department, and Beijing Landscape Bureau. US participants include members from the national level (retired U.S. National Park Service personnel) from the state level (Wisconsin and California state parks), and resource management experts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Community-Based Biodiversity Conservation

Local villagers have long been the primary stewards of our natural resources. Poverty, lack of educational opportunities and unemployment threaten this sustainable relationship by destroying the social framework of rural communities. Re-structuring these relationships requires new thinking to strengthen the institutions of leadership and resource management.

Example: Community Based Participatory Planning --Yunnan Upland Ecosystem Project

USCEF designed and helps manage China’s first medium sized NGO-led Global Environmental Fund (GEF) project. The Yunnan Upland Ecosystem Project is designed to conserve biodiversity in the mountain ecosystems in the uplands of Yunnan Province by involving local communities in planning and monitoring. Once operational, the project will establish replicable models of community-based natural resource management utilizing local management councils for each watershed within the project area.

The project is funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and implemented in China by the United Nations Development Program. USCEF's principal project partner is the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.