Seven nature reserves have been blacklisted by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) due to illegal management practices.

Of the seven, six are national-level nature reserves and the other a provincial-level reserve.

"The serious violations by the seven nature reserves, together with the mismanagement of other reserves, have been found in a sweeping investigation of the 2,056 national or provincial-level nature reserves in 23 regions since April of this year," said the spokesman for SEPA. "These violations should be blamed on the loose management, protection and supervision on nature reserves."

SEPA has called for the suspension of all illegal activities of mineral resource exploration, and constructions of a transportation facility and hydro power plants.

At Jiufeng Mountain Nature Reserve, located in the central and western area of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in North China, 37 coal mines were found to have operated illegally, including one in the core area of the reserve.

As a provincial-level nature reserve, it covers 78,316 hectares and includes a mountainous forest landscape. Surrounded by desert, the ecological system of the nature reserve is very fragile with trees that survived for hundreds of years.

Although all the operations have been suspended, the ecology has been seriously damaged.

The investigation also found that in some reserves, hydro power plants have been built, such as in the Wuzhishan Mountain Nature Reserve of Hainan Province and Luchunhuanglian Mountain Nature Reserve of Yunnan Province.

After the investigation, 506 cases have been put on file, 260 projects were stopped, 10 tourist projects were cancelled and 66 people are being investigated.

China has 243 national-level nature reserves, covering 89.4 million hectares and accounting for 9 percent of the country's land.

(China Daily November 16, 2005)