James Hardcastle, representing IUCN, and Vice-Secretary of the Xianju Communist Party Secretariat, agreed on an ambitious plan for collaboration for environmental protection and ‘eco-civilization’ in Xianju and in China.

Xianju’s administration, near Shanghai, has one of the most bold ‘green-growth’ programmes in China, with very progressive leadership that is grabbing attention in China. Xianju have a significant investment portfolio in green and environmental projects in the next 2-3 years.

Xianju National Park, the flagship spiritual and scenic mountain protected area of Xianju, is already a demonstration site for China’s reform of the national protected area system.

By joining the IUCN Green List programme, Xianju commit to achieving the highest international standards for fair and effective nature conservation.

IUCN will work closely with Xianju to help bring international tools and best practice to bear to help achieve the ‘Green List’ status for Xianju’s nature conservation areas, by 2020.

Through the IUCN Green List programme, IUCN will place Xianju’s efforts on the global stage, and help bring the best Chinese examples of successful conservation to the forefront, especially in the international policy arena.

Also in 2020, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties (COP) will be hosted by China. This event will set new and ambitious targets for all signatory countries, including China. The IUCN Green List can show the way to parties on how to achieve success and quality in their nature protection systems.

Additionally, the IUCN Green List Standard offers donors and investors a means to channel resources directly to participating sites, who can demonstrate how they use resources to improve their performance. IUCN is working with global partners on a new blockchain-based technology for verification of conservation success. This technology will be linked to an investment ‘token’ that will allow buyers to trace the impact of their financing.

The first technical meetings will take place in Xianju in early 2018.