Editor's Note: During the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Yerevan, Armenia, in October, Qiu Jinghui, Deputy Director of the Public Interest Litigation Procuratorial Department of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), shared China's experiences in preserving biodiversity through public interest litigation. The SPP is China's highest procuratorial organ, the state body responsible for public prosecution and legal supervision. Its duties include bringing public prosecutions, reviewing and approving arrests, supervising criminal investigations and court proceedings, and overseeing the enforcement of judgments. At the conference, Qiu used four cases to show how Chinese prosecutors, through public interest litigation, have coordinated multi-stakeholder efforts to support biodiversity protection since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. Edited excerpts of Qiu's presentation follow:

Case Studies

The first case, A Chinese Model for Resolving the Human-Bird Conflict Through the Rule of Law, won the 2025 Global Awards for World Heritage Education Innovative Cases (AWHEIC). Prosecutors in Chongming, Shanghai, organized hearings involving regulatory authorities, experts and scholars, environmental organizations and community representatives to build consensus. While cracking down on illegal bird trapping, they urged e-commerce platforms to ban the sale of "bird-trapping nets," listed as prohibited hunting tools under the Wildlife Protection Law, and upgraded the Green Internet Campaign that shows warnings and educational pages when related specific keywords are searched.

They promoted the introduction of local standards and guidelines to regulate the use of "bird-proof nets" by farmers to minimize harm to birds while protecting crops. They also called for improving relief systems such as ecological protection compensation and commercial insurance and reserving some farmland and fish ponds as "migratory bird canteens," while developing bird-watching tourism.

This model has been put into practice across World Natural Heritage sites including the Migratory Bird Sanctuaries Along the Coast of the Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, and the Changshan Islands in Dalian, Liaoning Province. Its approaches have been replicated and promoted nationwide. For example, prosecutors in Bijie, Guizhou Province, ensured the prevention and control of light pollution in black-necked crane habitats. Prosecutors in Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, ensured that wind power projects shut down turbines in a timely manner based on bird-monitoring data. Prosecutors in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, worked with bird-watching volunteers to compel an engineering project to adjust its plan to protect the Chinese merganser, a type of diving duck. Chinese prosecutors' experiences in tackling mist nets to protect migratory birds was shared at the 2025 Global Coastal Forum in Jiangsu and the 2026 Global Flyway Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, and received BirdLife International endorsement. (BirdLife International is a global conservation partnership focused on protecting birds and their habitats—Ed.)

The second case is that of Human-Bear Coexistence on China's Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, which won the 2026 AWHEIC. In the Three-River-Source National Park, home to the World Natural Heritage site Qinghai Hoh Xil, prosecutors from the SPP, Qinghai Province and Xizang Autonomous Region, in cooperation with Snowland, a Qinghai-based NGO dedicated to ecological education, and with local communities, promoted humans' harmonious coexistence with brown bears. Brown bears were once considered "masters of the land" in nomadic culture. They showed that human food waste was the main cause of human-bear conflict, and in accordance with the Law on the Ecological Conservation of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, they focused on better management of household and tourism waste.

They encouraged herders to cover 10 percent to 15 percent of the cost to jointly install, use and maintain solar-powered electric fences, keeping brown bears out of waste dumps and settlements. This protects personal safety, livestock and property, while also preventing brown bears from consuming garbage, which affects their health and reduces their ability to survive in the wild.

The third case is that of Protection of the Cultural Landscape of Old Tea Forests of Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er in Yunnan Province, which was selected as an innovative practice case of UNESCO Asia-Pacific for the protection of tangible and intangible heritage in 2026. In addition to being the world's first tea-themed world heritage, the Pu'er ancient tea gardens and tea culture are also listed as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage and feature on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as part of the traditional tea processing techniques and their associated social practices in China.

In protecting world heritage sites, local prosecutors have combined their efforts with biodiversity protection. For example, in the core area of several ancient tea forests in Yunnan, trees had grown too densely, blocking sunlight and airflow. This encouraged pests such as the tea black tussock moth and the spread of plaster disease. Prosecutors pushed to speed up pest control. They also quickly identified an invasive alien species and urged that it be brought under control.

The fourth case is Wanfeng Lake Biodiversity Financing, selected by the United Nations Development Programme as an excellent case. Wanfeng Lake is situated at the junction of Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi.

Illegal aquaculture polluted the lake, seriously harming public health and biodiversity. In response, the SPP brought public interest litigation to ensure unified law enforcement standards across the three provincial-level administrative regions. After successfully restoring water quality, China Construction Bank used this case to develop green and inclusive finance policies, and extended over 29 billion yuan ($4 billion) in green credit to the area. It supported the reconstruction of sustainable livelihoods for fishermen who shifted to land-based ecological fisheries, as well as cold chain logistics, ecological restoration and other industries, supporting more than 8,000 households along the lake to obtain better employment and increased income, as well as preventing illegal activities from returning.

Today, Wanfeng Lake has become an important component of the Xingyi Global Geopark. The number of wintering migratory bird species has increased from 32 to 57 and biodiversity continues to improve.

Proposals

China's Ecological and Environmental Code has officially come into effect, and the Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation Law is expected to be passed in the near future. I would like to put forward four proposals around the implementation of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement:

We should promote ecological culture. China can share its ecological culture, help other developing countries with meteorological early warning and disaster prevention and mitigation, promote the conservation of marine habitats, and build a cultural foundation for marine biodiversity protection.

We should protect public health. We should strengthen the comprehensive supervision of the entire chain of seafood product quality and safety, especially traceability governance for imported and exported seafood, and prevent toxic, harmful and illegally caught seafood from entering the market and harming public health, as well as ecological interests. We should accelerate the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative, limit excessive packaging and prevent land-based plastic from entering the sea.

We should emphasize a gender perspective. We should safeguard by law women's rights, equal opportunities and equal participation in ocean governance—historically a male-dominated field in both representation and policy design. We should fully leverage the important role of women in promoting sustainable development.

We should strengthen the functions of finance in optimizing resource allocation, and in risk prevention and control. We should correctly implement environmental impact assessment standards regarding distant-water fisheries and potential deep-sea mining, and promote the development of integrity systems, including information disclosure. BR

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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