GEP accounting to help promote environmental awareness

Chinese scientists have placed an annual gross ecosystem price tag of about 205 billion yuan ($31.7 billion) on products and services at the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, China's largest contiguous tropical rainforest.

The move aims to help people better understand the tremendous wealth inherent in a sound environment and to promote coordinated efforts to boost environmental protection and socioeconomic growth.

Official research results released at a news conference held by the Hainan provincial government on Sept 26 showed that the GEP of the rainforest park hit 204.5 billion yuan in 2019, or 46 million yuan per square kilometer based on GEP value per unit.

More specifically, the value of ecosystem regulation services (including water conservation, biodiversity, flood regulation and storage and air purification) was 167 billion yuan, accounting for about 83 percent of the park's total GEP, while the value of material products (including forestry, agricultural and animal husbandry products) was 4.85 billion yuan, or 2.37 percent, according to Yang Zhongyang, president of the Hainan Academy of Forestry Sciences.

The institute jointly conducted the country's first-ever GEP accounting for a national park in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences.

In addition, the value of ecosystem cultural services (including tourism, landscape value and other indicators) was 30.77 billion yuan, accounting for 15 percent of the park's GEP, Yang said.

GEP refers to the total value of the direct and indirect use of ecosystem goods and services, including the values of provision, regulation services and ecological culture services. It summarizes the value of nature's contributions to sustainable socioeconomic development.

The rainforest park was one of the country's five first formally designated national parks announced at the Leaders' Summit of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP 15, which was held in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, on Oct 12.

Located in the mountainous area of central Hainan island, it covers about 4,269 square kilometers, or one-seventh of the province's land area, and is known as one of the world's key germ plasm resource banks. The green massif boasts five national nature reserves and four provincial reserves that are home to 3,653 species of wild vascular plants and 540 species of vertebrates.

The park is the only habitat of the Hainan gibbon, which is a critically endangered species that numbers just 35.

As a new measure that is being carried out on a pilot basis in six provinces across China－Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Qinghai, Fujian and Hainan－GEP accounting will help establish a market-based, sustainable value realization mechanism for eco-products, in which the Chinese government takes the lead, while people and enterprises participate, said Wang Jinnan, head of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning.

Li Yide, a researcher at the Institute of Tropical Forestry, part of the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences, said GEP accounting effectively makes up for the inability of GDP accounting to measure natural resource consumption, ecological resources and environmental damage. He added that regular quantitative accounting of the output and benefits of the ecosystem in the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park system will help promote the achievements of officials, with GEP growth as the bottom line, and help ensure that the public understands that resources are limited, and ecological systems are valuable.

"The GEP accounting of the park provides a quantifiable yardstick for the country's development of an ecological civilization, showing that Hainan is promoting the new and green development concept through concrete efforts," Li said.

"The calculation of GEP is an essential precondition for promoting its application in ecological protection incentives and ecological damage compensation, as well as in financing for ecosystem product and service development and operations related to ecological resource rights."

Li suggested that the total value of ecological products be included in the comprehensive performance evaluation of the achievements of local governments in promoting high-quality development.

"I never thought the natural environment in my hometown could be so valuable," said 58-year-old Liang Yiwen, a forest ranger who has worked in the rainforest for most of his life. He said he believes that GEP calculation will improve people's environmental awareness.