The main wildlife habitats and wetlands are under sound conservation in China thanks to the consistent efforts of the government made in the regard, a senior forestry official said in Beijing Thursday.

By the end of 2003, the forestry authority has established 1,538 nature reserves, taking up 80 percent of the nation's total and 12.3 percent of the country's total land space, Zhao Xuemin, deputy director of the State Forestry Administration, told a press conference on wildlife and wetland conservation in China, which was held in Beijing Thursday.

Zhao said establishment of these nature reserves bring 40 percent of China's natural wetlands, the main habitats of 300 species of wild fauna and the main distributing areas of 130 species of wild flora under sound protection.

China is rich in wildlife species. There are about 6,000 vertebrates alone and 30,000 species of higher plants. Some species like the giant panda and metasequoia are native in China.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to ecological conservation and sticks to the concept of scientific development.

Currently, a comparatively sound legislative, administrative and law enforcement and supervision network has taken shape. China has put into effect the Forest Law, the Wild Fauna Conservation Law, Regulations on Conservation of the Wild Flora, Regulations on Management of Nature Reserves of Forest and Wild Fauna Types and other rules and regulations.

Special conservation institutions have been established in the forestry departments at various levels, and supervision institutions have been set up in key regions, with forest police and armed forest police force established to intensify conservation management.

China has established over 250 wild fauna rescue and breeding bases, 400 germplasm breeding or genetic reserves for wild flora and stable artificial population for rare and endangered wild fauna species and 1,000 wild flora species, thus protecting the rare and highly endangered species form extinction.

Zhao said, artificial development of wild fauna and flora resources is broad in scale. China has set up 24,500 breeding entities for wild fauna, 17,000 farming entities for wild flora, 243 safari parks and 115 botanical gardens or arboretums, which have not only satisfied the social demand but also alleviated the pressure on resource conservation in the wild.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2004)