In cooperation with Tsinghua University, Huangshan has developed a monitoring system covering various evaluation indicators of the three designations, issued monitoring reports every year, analyzed the work of the whole mountain and guided the future work plan.
We have improved our display and education system to make employees, communities and school students better understand the values and connections of UNESCO designations. We have launched various forms of educational activities, used our Wechat official account, geopark museum, interpretation boards, promotional materials and website to demonstrate the different values of Huangshan. 30 sessions of Huangshan Nature Lecture were held. 20 education articles about integrated management were published on Wechat account. Our English website and 40 interpretation boards were updated to include content about integrated management.
1. Support from partner university
2. Monitoring and education are the common goals of the three designations.
Monitoring reports need to be distributed to every department and exchanged to better support each other.
The use of the media is needed to publicize the work and achievements. This can not only show achievements but also attract more partners, bring more cooperation opportunities and expand influence.
We’ve done two things for this part. The first is to research the relevance in value and protection objectives of the 3 UNESCO designations. In order to formulate the integrated management plan, 3 interdisciplinary studies were carried out, and 2 papers with Science Citation Index and 3 reports were published. The correlation between World Heritage and Global Geoparks is studied in order to formulate integrated management strategies.
Secondly, on the basis of value identification, we made a management plan and strategy. Considering that the objectives and evaluation criteria of these three designations guide our work to a great extent, in cooperation with China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), we have studied the relationship and difference between World Heritage and Global Geopark, integrated the indicators of the three designations, and clarified their similarities and differences, so as to facilitate the division of labor and cooperation between offices. At present, two relevant reports have been issued.
1. Support from Huangshan Integrated Management Expert Committee
2. Support from partner university
Before making a plan, we must do investigation and research.
Firstly, in order to ensure a scientific plan, we should cooperate with professional institutions to conduct interdisciplinary research to explore the relation among geology, biology, culture, and human beings. Because, after all, our ultimate goal is to achieve sustainable development of both nature and our human beings.
Besides, to ensure the interests of stakeholders, community interviews should be conducted to listen to opinions and make use of the wisdom of local people.
And the results obtained from these researches should be presented to the public by publishing academic papers and merging the results into education materials.
Good governance is the basis for follow-up work. In order to realize the integrated management of the three designations, we firstly need appropriate staff and working mechanism. To this end, we have formulated the Working Mechanism for Integration of the 3 UNESCO Designations of Huangshan (for trial implementation), which stipulates regular discussions among personnel responsible for each designation to seek common ground, while setting differences aside and sharing specific information relevant to each designation.
It enables us to collect all the resources of different departments and concentrate on completing common work.
1. The three UNESCO designations of Huangshan are under the management of the same committee - Huangshan Scenic Area Administrative Committee.
2. The three UNESCO designations and our corresponding management departments have common goals, such as resource protection, education, developing sustainable tourism, promoting community development, etc.
Appropriate organization and adequate staff is the basis of everything. It needs to be stipulated in official documents to ensure the appropriate operation.
The holistic approach to rangeland degradation includes recommendations for land and resource tenure arrangements and institutional models that enhance land management and reduce land degradation. For example, it tells you when and where to use sustainable rangeland management (SRM) practices. Thus, it may help the guidance on livestock policy, technology and investment priorities for programs but also development agencies, decision-makers, and other international organizations.
The main objective of this toolkit is to enhance rangeland ecosystems services and pastoralists wellbeing through sharing, enhancing, and using knowledge on SRM practices. For any site, a combination of proven technologies is made available with a goal to implement a cost-effective restoration that is holistic and scalable. Furthermore, this toolkit aims to minimize investment failures by providing detailed information about commonly used practices.
Site specific: the toolkit offers solutions following a diagnosis which are contextually based
Participatory: the methodology is based on participatory principles
Holistic: address the biophysical and socioeconomic linkages and trade-offs existing between the different land uses.
Flexible approach which relies on day-to-day monitoring where managers must plan and re-plan
Proven technology based on experience from field undertaken in similar environments.
Scaling up: Provide latest insights into SRM by presenting relevant good practices in view of scaling up
The potential to scale up the SRM toolkit is high in the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia. For example, in the drylands in Jordan where the Badia Restoration Programme takes place, soil seed banks have trouble growing because the soil surface is crusted. There are practices within the toolkit that address this issue. When the soil seed back is depleted, selected SRM practices enhances the results compared to traditional methods that are relatively difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, and have tended to result in overly detailed records for just a few locations.
