On 4thJuly 2019, an inception workshop of the project "Evaluation and Sustainable Management of Wetland Ecosystem Services in Dongying City" was held at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The project is a half-year study to be performed by UNEP-IEMP during June to December 2019, as part of the Pilot Project on Green Economy in Dongying (Phase III), with financial support from the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Dongying City, Shandong Province. At the workshop, the UNEP-IEMP research unit presented a draft framework of the study and experts from three research institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences, including the IGSNRR, the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, and the Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Beijing Forestry University, and Urban Greening Committee of Dongying City reviewed and made their comments on the framework. Officials from Dongying’s Foreign Affairs Office and Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources participated in the discussion. Prof. Linxiu Zhang, Director of UNEP-IEMP, facilitated the workshop.
Dongying is located at the Yellow River Delta and has an increasing area of new-born wetlands. It is also an important ‘transit station’, wintering habitat, and breeding habitat for birds in inland northeast Asia and around the western Pacific Ocean. In 2018, it was honored as one of the first group of international wetland cities accredited by the Ramsar Convention. This study to be performed by UNEP-IEMP will provide policy recommendations on how to promote sustainable management of wetland ecosystem services, based on a mapping of wetlands and their services to human well-being as well as a collection of experience and lessons in wetland conservation and management in this city, so as to serve for development goals as a modern wetland city of Dongying.
