China continues efforts on biodiversity conservation with concrete actions, projects: minister

China has launched 27 priority operations and 75 priority projects on biodiversity conservation, in strengthening efforts to build itself into a beautiful country featuring harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature, Chinese Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu said on Tuesday.

Huang is in Colombia's southwestern city of Cali to attend the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16), which runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1, and brings together delegations from 196 countries.

China has expressed the hope that the various agreements adopted at the COP15 could be faithfully implemented, especially the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Signed by 196 countries, the framework consists of global targets to be achieved by 2030 and beyond to safeguard and sustainably use biodiversity.

In the lead up to the COP16, countries are encouraged to present their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) in line with the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. On the second day of the meeting, a COP16 media spokesperson reported that 35 countries had done so.

"We released a new version of NBSAP in January this year, which sets the construction of a beautiful China featuring harmonious coexistence of man and nature as the vision, and puts forward China's biodiversity conservation goals for 2030 and 2035. In addition, we have launched a total of 27 priority operations and 75 priority projects in four priority areas respectively focused on mainstreaming of biodiversity, response to the risk of biodiversity loss, sustainable use of biodiversity and benefit-sharing, and modernization of the biodiversity governance capacity," Huang said in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) on the sidelines of the event.

Li Lin, director of Global Policy and Advocacy at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International, has been leading WWF's China Conservation program for the last 11 years.

The WWF was the first non-governmental organization (NGO) invited into China in the 1980s, and Li said China has made strenuous efforts in preserving nature and transforming towards sustainable development over the past years.

"These 40 years are also a [period of] time when we have seen China go through rapid economic development, and we know when the economic development is really rapid, nature suffers. So, it is critical to remember that nature sustains us, even [with] the economic development. Therefore, we are really happy to see China is putting a path towards a green and low-carbon development," Li said.

She noted that WWF China has been closely working with various stakeholders in the country, including the Chinese government, on the conservation of wildlife and ecosystems, as well as on building the national park system. Therefore, China has a lot of experience to share with other countries at the COP16.

"I think the world has a lot to learn from China. Sustainability is something the world needs to really learn and share, so that we can all go through the future, live in harmony with nature together," Li said.

For any conservation efforts, the biggest challenge is funding. This May, China officially established the Kunming Biodiversity Fund to support biodiversity conservation in developing countries, and took the lead by investing 1.5 billion yuan (about 210.45 million U.S. dollars) as a call for more countries to take concrete actions.

China continues efforts on biodiversity conservation with concrete actions, projects: minister

Artists have reimagined ancient themes through a modern lens at the 60th Venice Biennale China National Pavilion Exhibition, now underway in Shanghai.

The main feature of the exhibition is a fully immersive project by artist Che Jianquan, who has placed consecutive screens placed side by side to present his two-decade-long documentation of the same pavilion since 2003.

Through his lens, the artist captures the pavilion, as it emerges and disappears amidst mist and clouds, evoking the aesthetic of misty landscapes in traditional Chinese ink paintings.

"At the beginning, I wanted to use painting to document my feeling, but later I realized that painting was somewhat powerless. So, starting in 2003, I began using the earliest video equipment to start recording. What I care about more is a place—a very small location—and the unique connection it has within that field to history and to the culture of that region. I think this is something I hope to achieve: through a seemingly ordinary scene, to uncover the stories behind it, as well as its possible influence on both the past era and the present," said Chen.

Established in 1895, the Venice Biennale is one of the premier events in the global art world. This year, the China National Pavilion Exhibition, under the theme "Atlas: Harmony in Diversity," presents not only the documentary archives of 100 Chinese paintings held overseas, but also seven contemporary artworks created by seven Chinese artists exploring themes, such as architecture, landscapes, figures, flora and fauna.

"The core of the Venice Biennale is contemporary art, reflecting the spirit of the present era—yet the present and history cannot be separated. This exhibition is rooted in the tradition of Chinese painting across dynasties, drawing from over 20,000 individual works that took us twenty years to collect globally," said Wang Xiaosong, an artist and the curator of the exhibition.

"Notably, we discovered that more than 3,000 of these paintings had been lost overseas, which we spent two decades retrieving through digital tools. This is how we engage with traditional art: through each artist's reflection and a new understanding of the relationship between the ancients, the present, and the future," he added.

Wang drew special attention to a piece by the modern artist Qiu Zhenzhong, who he said merges the art of Chinese gardens with calligraphy using traditional methods to showcase contemporary issues such as environmental and ecological change.

"It's like a dialogue with nature," Wang said.

The exhibition in Shanghai is the final stop of the national tour, following the legs in the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, and will run until May 31.

Exhibition in Shanghai bridges contemporary art with centuries of Chinese artistic tradition