UN Honours China's Blue Bay Marine Restoration Drive

Beijing, October 30: The United Nations has recognized China's Blue Bay Restoration Campaign as a flagship project of world ecosystem restoration for 2026. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources of China, the honour was conferred during a Restoration Day programme in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. The event was part of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17).

The campaign is led and implemented by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Finance. It is only the second national ecological conservation and restoration campaign from China to be granted flagship project status by the UN. The first was the Mountains-Rivers Project, which received the recognition in 2022.

China has now become the first country to receive this recognition twice through its national campaigns. The achievement underlines the scale and consistency of its restoration work.

The UN Environment Programme has included the Blue Bay campaign among the most promising, ambitious and exemplary large-scale ecological restoration initiatives globally. The recognition is viewed as an acknowledgment of the commitment to healthier marine ecosystems and better long-term living conditions for coastal communities.

In recent years, the two ministries have stepped up marine ecological restoration in key ecological security barrier zones along the coast. They are also working to unify land and sea resource management and to connect rivers with the ocean.

During the 13th and 14th Five-Year Plans, spanning 2016 to 2025, the central government funded 194 major marine ecological restoration projects in coastal provinces. The total central subsidy for these projects was 36.63 billion yuan.

These initiatives restored over 150,000 hectares of coastal wetlands along more than 2,000 kilometres of coastline. They also made an important contribution to the management of Spartina alterniflora vegetation.

The overall impact includes improved quality and stability in important marine ecosystems, a rise in biodiversity, and an expansion of high-quality marine areas for public use. Coastal disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities have also been strengthened, along with the marine ecological security barrier.