The Ministry of Natural Resources says China’s natural resource foundation is more robust

On July 14, the Ministry of Natural Resources said in Beijing that China’s resource endowment has been further consolidated, and the capabilities for resource survey, monitoring, and management have continued to improve. At a press conference held that day by the State Council Information Office, Wang Huabin, Director of the Department of Natural Resources Survey and Monitoring at the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that in recent years the ministry has continuously advanced the unified survey and monitoring of natural resources, and has coordinated basic surveys and a number of special surveys covering resources such as land, minerals, forests, grasslands, wetlands, water, oceans, and deserts, as well as territorial spaces such as national parks. Wang also noted that relevant departments are drawing on pilot experience from places such as Zhejiang and Chongqing to integrate data on basic geographic information, survey and monitoring, property rights, and planning, and are building a “one map” for natural resource management and territorial spatial planning, in order to more dynamically grasp resource conditions and improve refined and intelligent management. The press conference also disclosed progress in the protection, development, and utilization of a number of resources, including better safeguarding of the red line for cultivated land, continued clarification of the quantity and distribution of 164 identified mineral reserves, the rise of China’s forest coverage rate to 25.09%, forest stock volume reaching 20.988 billion cubic meters, and the retention rate of the mainland’s natural shoreline remaining above 35%.