Human activities such as pollution and over-grazing, and natural disasters such as sandstorms, mudslides, landslides and floods, are inflicting damage amounting to 200 billion yuan (US$29.2 billion) each year to China's most fragile ecological regions. In some regions the cost of environmental degradation is higher than GDP growth, according to a report published by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The report – An Outline National Plan to Protect Ecotones – concentrates on eight key regions that are important areas for the preservation of biodiversity but are particularly sensitive to environmental disruptions and climate change. The regions – called ecotones – are transitional areas between distinct ecosystems.

The ecotones lie in five main areas – the arid and semi-arid zones of northern China, mountainous areas in south and southwest China, the Tibetan plateau, and flood prone wetlands in east China. They are home to many of the 23.6 million Chinese people who live in absolute poverty.

Wan Bentai, of the Ministry of Environmental Protection told China Business News that ecotones are the regions most in need of protection, and sensitive and careful development of the regional economies is the best way to solve the problem of environmental degradation.

The outline plan calls for the government to manage the use and development of more than 40 percent of the land in China's eight ecotones for the next ten years, and inject major capital resources to promote sustainable development.

(China.org.cn by Ma Yujia October 17, 2008)