Dr. Kyle Warwick Tomlinson is receiving the interview with S&T Daily. (PHOTO: S&T Daily)

By BI Weizi and CHEN Chunyou

"Be part of the Plan" is the theme for this year's International Day for Biological Diversity.

Science and Technology Daily (S&T Daily) reporters visited the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Yunnan province in southwestern China, where they witnessed the joint efforts of scientists from China and abroad to preserve biodiversity.

"Everyone is responsible for biodiversity, it's a moral code that we have to live by," said Dr. Kyle Warwick Tomlinson, a researcher at XTBG. Raising people's awareness through educational events and encouraging them to visit nature reserves to see what diversity can be like in environments with less human impact are important ways to help them be part of the ecological course and contribute to sustainable development, Tomlinson added.

China has established a system to keep the ecosystem intact and protect biodiversity. National parks are the mainstay of this system, supported by nature reserves and complemented by nature parks such as the Sanjiangyuan National Park in northwestern China which is the cradle of three mighty Asian rivers, the Giant Panda National Park in western China, and the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park at the southern tip. "These are really large areas that are important for biodiversity conservation because they maintain whole ecosystem processes," Tomlinson said.

As a Chinese proverb says, "All beings thrive when they live in harmony and are nourished by nature." Biodiversity is the foundation of human survival and development. According to Tomlinson, it is not only about the diversity of species, but also their functional diversity. "Animals eat grass and bees eat flowers. These are functions that they fulfill and they affect how the whole ecosystem works together," he explained.

"China has taken leadership in this role and made impressive gains in the last 10 years," he added. It has always been a firm supporter of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), supporting the conservation land area objectives of the CBD in consecutive meetings and working on preventing pollution in the country massively, improving the quality of the rivers and air quality substantially.

A healthy eco-environment is the foundation of a better life and the common aspiration of the people. "Respect and protection of nature have contributed greatly to the survival and prosperity of the Chinese nation for thousands of years," Tomlinson said. It is his hope that the concept of "harmony between man and nature" will always be a distinctive feature of the Chinese civilization.