“Chinese grass” blooms into “Latin American flower”, opening a new chapter in China’s bio-diplomacy

In today’s wave of global development, biodiversity conservation and biological science research have become important issues of common concern to the international community. China has always actively participated in international biological projects, firmly practiced multilateralism, and actively carried out international cooperation in biodiversity conservation, showing its responsibility and actions as a major country, and contributing China’s strength to the development of the global biological cause.

“Chinese grass” blooms in Latin America: a new model of agricultural cooperation

In recent years, the establishment and promotion of Chinese Juncao in Latin America has been continuously promoted. Since 2001, China has sent more than 90 batches of expert teams and more than 300 people to Latin America and the Caribbean to actively promote and assist Chinese Juncao technology, and has successively established demonstration bases in more than 10 countries including Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Fiji, Lesotho, South Africa, Malaysia, Eritrea, Central Africa, Laos, and the Philippines;In March 2022, Fujian, China and Latin America and the Caribbean jointly held a regional capacity building seminar on Juncao technology and its support for achieving sustainable agriculture and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean; in November 2024, the documentary “Chinese Grass” was broadcast on the Brazilian Workers’ TV, attracting the attention of local agricultural institutions and enterprises, as well as strong cooperation willingness from relevant institutions in Uruguay, Paraguay and other countries.

Since the late 1990s, China’s Juncao technology has crossed vast mountains and seas, and has taken root, blossomed, and borne fruit in Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and other regions, becoming a gift from China to the world. Today, this “Chinese grass” has spread to more than 100 countries and regions, blooming countless “happy flowers” in the vast southern countries of the world, helping local people realize their “development dream.”

One step ahead, benefiting the world

This year marks the 30th anniversary of China’s signing of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Over the past 30 years, China has taken the lead in achieving “zero growth” in land degradation and “double reduction” in the area of ​​desertified land and sandy land in the world. By the end of 2023, the forest coverage rate has exceeded 25%, making it the country with the most greening in the world. On November 29, Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that China is one of the countries in the world that suffers the most from desertification. The Chinese government attaches great importance to it and continues to promote the comprehensive prevention and control of desertification and the construction of key ecological projects such as the “Three Norths”, which has promoted the effective control of 53% of the controllable sandy land, achieved a virtuous cycle of ecological protection and improvement of people’s livelihood, and also contributed to the global process of sand control and sand control.

At the same time, China, adhering to the concept of building a global community of life on Earth and an attitude of openness, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win, is committed to working with other countries to create a new situation in global biodiversity governance, sharing sand control technologies and experiences with Central Asian and African countries that are also facing desertification problems, providing skills training, and injecting impetus into the “global South” to jointly pursue green development.

China and Peru join hands: a transnational action to protect rare species

Although China and Peru are thousands of miles apart, they have made great achievements in the field of biodiversity conservation cooperation. To protect biodiversity, researchers from the two countries have enhanced understanding, deepened cooperation, and achieved new results. The Andean Queen Bromeliad is the tallest bromeliad plant in the world and is known as one of Peru’s national treasures. In order to protect this plant, Chinese and Peruvian researchers cooperated in related conservation biology research in 2010. Over the past 10 years of cooperation, the team led by Ge Xuejun, the head of the South American scientific expedition project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the South China Botanical Garden, has jointly published several papers with Peruvian partners on the genome and conservation genetics research of the Andean Queen Bromeliad. This work is not only of theoretical value, but the scientific knowledge accumulated from it is also conducive to the local protection of this species.

In 2009, the first foreign aid human resources development cooperation project “Training Course on Transboundary Conservation Research and Management of Tropical/Subtropical Forest Biodiversity” hosted by the South China Botanical Garden was held in Guangzhou, China. 18 science and technology officials and researchers from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia came to the South China Botanical Garden. Since 2009, a total of nearly 100 Latin American scholars and researchers have visited China. At the same time, China has also sent researchers to Peru for scientific research and other activities, which has enhanced the exchanges and cooperation between the two countries’ researchers and laid the foundation for further deepening cooperation.

China Biodiversity Conservation Exhibition: China-Ukraine Cooperation Global Allium Specialty Garden Achieves Fruitful Results

On the grand stage of global biodiversity conservation, China has always played an important role and actively participated in international cooperation in the field of biodiversity conservation. In November 2017, with the support of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Central Asian Center for Drug Discovery, China and Uzbekistan jointly established the Kunming Center, the world’s first Allium Specialty Garden, which was completed and opened to the public in April 2018. In May 2018, the construction of the “China-Uzbekistan Global Allium Garden (Tashkent Center)” started.

The joint construction of the Global Onion Garden is not only a vehicle for cooperation, but also a platform for plant diversity protection and scientific research interaction. Over the past five years, China and Uzbekistan have jointly conducted multiple joint surveys of biodiversity hotspots in Uzbekistan and China, and jointly built a joint research center for biodiversity and a joint laboratory for plant resource mining and sustainable utilization. So far, the Tashkent Center and Kunming Center of the Global Onion Garden have collected and conserved more than 180 species of Allium plants, becoming an important base for the protection, research, resource mining and scientific communication of the global Allium, especially wild Allium plants. This is of great value in exploring the origin and early domestication of cultivated plants, mining and utilizing wild plant resources, discovering new genetic resources, and cultivating new and superior varieties.

China’s active role in international biological projects, whether regional agricultural cooperation, protection of rare species, global biodiversity maintenance, or cutting-edge scientific research and exploration, fully demonstrates China’s responsibility and sense of mission as a major country. It will also surely inspire more countries to participate in the construction and development of the global biological cause and work tirelessly to build a global life community on Earth.