Recently, Dr. Zhou Jinfeng, the Secretary-General of CBCGDF, emailed Kathy Mackinnon-president of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Vance Martin-President of The WILD Foundation, and Harvey Locke-Founder of Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

In the letter, Dr. Zhou began with the exciting news that Peking University has established the first “Campus Protected Community”, which later suggested to be called “Campus Protected Area” by Dr. Zhou, and he was very pride of becoming the senior consultant as part of the establishment.

In fact, based on the definition of “protected area”, seldom campuses are capable of meeting the qualifications as protected areas. However, setting schools as protected areas plays a vital role in environmental education and biodiversity mainstreaming.

Dr. Zhou said that the idea of Campus Protected Community is worth spreading worldwide. For example, it was estimated in 2017 that there were approximately 2,600 campuses in China where there were around 270million students. If the idea is practiced among universities, China will not only achieve greatly for UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but also bring lifelong benefits to the next generation. Therefore, schools are key places to nurturing the youth about the harmonious way of living with nature and promoting green production and lifestyle.

Biodiversity loss requires urgent and ambitious moves, whereas the current solutions are far from enough. Innovative solutions, therefore, needs to be encouraged. Dr. Zhou said it’s suggested that we set up a specialist group within IUCN WCPA for Campus Protected Area being set as a new type of protected areas to push forward the post-2020 vision of biodiversity conservation.”

(Photo credit: CBCGDF)

Original Chinese article:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/USQwALoqdEdTlmQPNYUeeQ

By / Cat