From April 10 to 13, President Xi Jinping toured sites in the Province of Hainan, making statements extolling the harmony of nature and humanity. On April 11, he visited the Hainan Tropical Rainforest, renowned for its remarkable biodiversity. The park has about one-seventh the land area of Hainan Island, and covers 4,400 sq. km., including nine cities and counties. CGTN reported April 13 that he said, “the construction of the park is related to the development of the whole country.” He otherwise visited a premier crop seed laboratory, the Hainan Free Trade port facilities—built to serve the BRI–a tea-producing, revitalized village, and other sites.
The themes of his visit stand out internationally, amidst ongoing anger at China from the World Wildlife Fund UK and others, for not going gung-ho in favor of reducing mankind’s activity in the name of favoring biodiversity. China is currently set to host COP 15 Part 2 on Biodiversity, in Kunming in August, after hosting Part 1 in October, 2021 (virtually). The COP15 summit was originally planned for 2020, but has been rescheduled three times because of the pandemic.
COP15 is the UN track on mitigating loss of biodiversity, running parallel to COP26 on mitigating climate change. A team has been working on the text of a new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBD) for the COP 15 Part 2 conference, and reports are, it is a slog, because of the frictions over the intent of a world green faction which wants to lock up 30 percent of Earth’s land and water from human activity by 2030, in the name of saving biodiversity and of climate-change goals. President Xi Jinping refused to endorse a 30-by-30 mandate last October, in his message to COP15.
