China's environmental conservation efforts have clear positive effects, says a new research. (Photo : Getty Images)
China is taking effective steps toward a better environment that have not gone unnoticed as scientists from the Stanford University note the positive impact of the government’s conservation efforts.
The Asian giant has long been considered as one of the most polluted countries in the world, with its massive population making things worse.
Though people may not see it immediately, the Chinese government's environmental policies are "making clear positive impacts," the Stanford University experts said.
China's Progress
Working with 3,000 scientists in about a decade, one of the senior authors of the study and Stanford's Bing Professor of Environmental Science Gretchen Daily noted China's progress in environmental conservation amid the massive damage to Mother Nature in that part of the world.
"China has gone further than any other country, as strange as that sounds given all the devastation that we read about on the environment front there," Daily said.
She further explained that while China is undergoing deepening crisis, the central government pursued the ambitious task of improving the environment without hesitation and had positive results to show for it.
"In the face of deepening environmental crisis, China has become very ambitious and innovative in its new conservation science and policies and has implemented them on a breathtaking scale," she added.
Policies with Positive Impact
Using The Natural Capital Project's software suite InVEST to analyze data from satellites, soil samples, biodiversity surveys, hydrological studies, meteorology, and other researches, the researchers assessed the Chinese government's efforts between 2000 and 2010 and determined that certain environmental conservation policies bore clear positive results.
"China is using science to identify and define the priority areas for protection or restoration in order to improve water security in a way that anybody could apply," Daily explained, saying that while science can determine the issue, it cannot improve the situation if the government does not make a move.
According to news from the Michigan University Today, China's efforts in environmental conservation projects cost the country about $50 billion.
Of course, there were still areas of improvement, as the state-run Xinhua News Agency noted that reforestation cannot immediately come from plantings, particularly if the trees were not native in the land.
Because of this, Daily urged more innovation in China's approach in making sure that the ecology survives.
"To realize the dream of becoming the ecological civilization of the 21st century," Daily said, "China needs more innovation in approaches to securing both nature and human well-being."
