The establishment of CSSG improved SSC’s ability to provide support to conservation and research projects in China, and opened doors for young professionals, non-English speaking specialists and interspecies biodiversity experts to engage in SSC’s international community. Since its official establishment in the third quarter of 2022, CSSG was able to recruit 100+ new experts into SSC, launched pilot programs for young professionals and activated a comprehensive study in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), via the newly formed Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Biodiversity Alliance (GHMBA), which CSSG helped establish. Spearheaded by Sun Yat-Sen University, University of Hong Kong, and University of Macau, GHMBA aims to create an interinstitutional platform for knowledge sharing and regional biosphere collaborations.

Since biodiversity loss and climate change are universally recognized by the scientific community as “two sides of the same coin”, CSSG’s biosphere pilot study in GBA aims to unveil the dynamic interrelation between biodiversity and climate, both for each of GBA’s 11 municipal “site biospheres” and collectively as a regional biosphere, which significant potential for addressing sustainability’s complex challenges. The study includes critical scientific tools for spatial planning and sustainable financing, such as the Red List “Barometer of Life”, ecosystem service function of species that support long-term survival of people in a given country, and MRV (Measurable, Reportable, Verifiable) ready carbon measurements of climate impacts on nature. GBA is a collaborative model for facilitating cross-border planning and implementation of regional biodiversity strategies and action plans, and other nature conservation and sustainability development efforts.