2006 Volume 10 Issue 1-2 Pages 21-44
The Peoples' Republic of China started to establish nature reserves in 1956, at the same time the country aimed to increase industrial production and promote national unification. This policy was affected by Chinese ideas of traditional resource management and by Soviet socialist ideas of resource management and national education. After the failure of the Great Leap Forward and during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1978), the political idea of human predominance over nature gained strength, resulting in a retreat for policies that promoted nature reserve establishment. In Yunnan Province, several reserves that had already been established were partly or entirely destroyed. Since 1972, abrupt increases in environmental pollution domestically and development of the international environmental movement stimulated the government to actively promote anti-pollution policies and to establish various institutional arrangements for environmental conservation. Consequently, the establishment of nature reserves was resumed and the idea of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve was newly introduced. These trends have been bolstered by the government's Open Reform Policy since 1978. The government has promoted sustainable development strategies since 1996, consequently increasing the number of nature reserves as well as conducting nature restoration projects.
