Shan-Shui Initiative

China

China’s Shan-Shui Initiative is hugely ambitious, comprising 75 large-scale initiatives to restore ecosystems from mountains to coastal estuaries right across the world’s most populous nation.

Launched in 2016, the initiative results from a systematic approach to restoration. Projects dovetail with national land use plans, work at the landscape or watershed scale, include agricultural and urban areas as well as natural ecosystems, and seek to boost multiple local industries. All include goals for biodiversity.

Examples include the Oujiang River Headwaters Project in Zhejiang province, which integrates scientific knowledge with traditional farming methods, like slope terracing and combining crops with fish- and duck-rearing to make land use more sustainable.

The initiative in numbers
2,000,000 Hectares restored
10,000,000 Hectares to be restored by 2030
3,270,000 Green jobs to be created by 2030
"Protecting the ecosystem requires more than a simplistic, palliative approach. We need to follow the innate laws of the ecosystem and properly balance all elements and aspects of nature."
Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China

Leading organizations

This World Restoration Flagship is coordinated by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Finance, People’s Republic of China with substantial support from related departments and local government.

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