August 15th, 2023 is the first National Ecological Day in China. The whole conservation sector celebrated it in various ways. I took a live interview with CGTN and here are my opinions on high-quality development, combining with our own work:
Most people would agree that high-quality development means a model where human and nature can thrive together. Therefore, there are several dimensions that people can consider.
First is awareness. Conservationists like me used to receive philanthropic donation and consider ourselves as nature defenders, which contradicted nature and development. Now we should be aware that there are not only compromises, but also harmonic and reliable solutions between them. Take WWF-China as an example, we just revamped our ocean programme into a sustainable blue economy priority project, trying to mainstream concepts like green and blue finance, and reduce harmful subsidies. We plan to shift economic drivers toward a more nature positive direction.
Second is the creation of enabling environment. To translate the high-quality development into day-to-day practices requires tangible tools, and we are forging them. We are developing a blue taxonomy, with which governmental institutes can identify sustainable industrial sectors and promote them. We are also developing a sustainable fishery project inventory. This is like a list of projects, more likely to be sustainable, so that investors can choose the profitable ones that interest them .
Third is the evaluation. We used to assess development by GDPs, but high-quality development should also consider the changes of ecosystem services. Last year, WWF published China Blue Economy Report and evaluated the ocean assets of China as 54 trillion RMB. This is still a rough figure , but it is an invaluable attempt. Smaller scale but finer accounting methodology can be developed at provincial or local levels, or specific areas like the greater Bay, so that people can measure whether the development is of high quality.