Highlights of China's Progress in Protecting Environmental Rights (2021–2025): Ecosystem conservation and restoration

China has secured continued improvement in eco-environmental quality and effectively safeguarded people's environmental rights, according to the Assessment Report on the Implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025) jointly released on June 5, 2026, by the China Society for Human Rights Studies and 20 national human rights education and training bases in the country.

The report assesses the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021-2025), which was issued in September 2021.

The third chapter assesses progress toward meeting targets to strengthen the protection of environmental rights. Below are some highlights from the report:

From 2021 to 2025, greening programs covering 36 million hectares of land have been completed, and the ecological conditions of key areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have continued to improve.

China has reinforced the protection and restoration of wetlands in the basins of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and major lakes, and the proportion of key rivers and lakes nationwide meeting established ecological flow targets has consistently remained above 90 percent.

China has established its first group of national parks, including the Three-River-Source (Sanjiangyuan) National Park, the Giant Panda National Park, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, the National Park of Hainan Tropical Rainforest, and the Wuyishan National Park.

Major projects of biodiversity protection have been carried out, covering 90 percent of terrestrial ecosystem types and 74 percent of major wildlife species in the country.