Abstract:

Background & Aims: Land/ocean use change represents the foremost direct driver of global biodiversity loss. Target 1 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework advocates for zero loss of critical ecological regions through comprehensive spatial planning encompassing all areas. The proposal of “establishing and improving a unified and coordinated system for land and space use control and planning permission covering all regions and all types” put forward at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China provides the best opportunity for implementing Target 1. 

Challenges: As national parks constitute territorial spaces for biological conservation, their institutional reforms must be thoroughly connected with the territorial space planning and utilization regulation frameworks to efficaciously underpin the conservation of such ecological spaces. Nonetheless, current top-level designs for national park reforms lack explicit integration with these two systems, leading to practical contradictions. 

Recommendations: It is suggested to fully connect the national park planning system with the five-tiered, three-category territorial space planning hierarchy to serve as the basis for spatial regulation within national parks; to advance the phased implementation of unified utilization control rights, either indirectly or directly exercised by national park management authorities, in accordance with the complexity of reforms; and to develop a differentiated and nuanced utilization control system grounded in spatial zoning.

Key words: Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, national park, territorial space planning, territorial space use regulation