China injects nearly $60m into the Kunming Biodiversity Fund

China has injected 400 million yuan ($56.9 million) into the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, which it initiated in 2021, and has now successfully completed the first nine projects under its support, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

In a news conference on Friday, Pei Xiaofei, the ministry's spokesman, also disclosed that the ministry launched 22 new projects the fund greenlighted during the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, which was held from Dec 8 to Dec 12 in Nairobi, Kenya.

China announced that it would take the lead by investing 1.5 billion yuan to establish the fund during the leaders' summit of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in October 2021. The fund was officially launched in May 2024.

With a total amount of nearly $28 million, these projects will benefit 34 developing nations across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as small island developing states.

These projects not only demonstrate broad geographic representation, but are also closely aligned with the core objectives of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted at COP15, Pei said.

He said these projects focus on areas such as marine and terrestrial ecosystem conservation, prevention and control of invasive alien species, and agricultural biodiversity.

In the Asian region, for example, the fund will support Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to protect and restore the integrity and connectivity of Central Asia's transboundary ecosystems.

Among the targets in the framework, for instance, are global conservation of 30 percent of all land, seas and inland waters, and restoration of 30 percent of degraded ecosystems.

"We look forward to concluding replicable and scalable experiences through these projects, providing practical references for global biodiversity governance, mobilizing more resources for biodiversity conservation, and jointly building a community of all life on Earth," he said.