Status of Nature Reserves in Inner Mongolia, China

Abstract

Nature reserves are an important component of the strategy to halt biodiversity loss caused by habitat fragmentation and loss, climate change and other anthropogenic factors. In the past decades, 184 nature reserves were designed for biodiversity conservation in Inner Mongolia. However, no studies have quantified the general condition of these reserves. In this paper, we summarized the history, distribution and effects of human interference on these reserves in Inner Mongolia. The results showed that: (1) The total area of nature reserves is 138,047 km 2 in Inner Mongolia. This constitutes 11.7% of its geographic area, which is lower than the national (14.9%), and the global average (13%). These reserves are mainly forest (68) and inland wetland (31) ecosystems. However, in terms of area, desert (40,948 km 2 ), forest (26,141 km 2 ) and inland wetland ecosystems (25,540 km 2 ) are predominant; (2) nature reserves have increased rapidly in number and area since 1995, especially at the province, city, and county levels; (3) the evergreen coniferous (26.4%), wetland (20.2%) and deciduous needle-leaf forests (19.6%) were sufficiently protected according to the 2020 target of 17% set by the Convention on Biological Diversity, while the other eight natural vegetation types, i.e., evergreen broad-leaved forests (14.2%), shrubs (13.5%), meadow vegetation (12.5%), typical steppe (10.2%), open forests (8.9%), desert vegetation (6.2%), desert steppe (2.9%), and sand vegetation (1.6%) were insufficiently protected; (4) the effects of human activities on these vegetation types were different. Open forest, sand vegetation, shrub, typical steppe, meadow steppe, evergreen broad-leaved, and evergreen coniferous forest were more affected than other vegetation types. Our results indicated that a more scientific approach is needed to effectively manage nature reserves in Inner Mongolia.

Spatio-Temporal Assessment of Landscape Ecological Risk and Associated Drivers: A Case Study of the Yellow River Basin in Inner Mongolia

“…In this paper, six drivers, namely, DEM digital elevation model, slope, annual precipitation, population density, NDVI, and anthropogenic disturbance index, were selected to drive the spatial heterogeneity of ecological risk in the YRBIM. To analyze the impact of anthropogenic disturbance degree on the ecological risk of the landscape in the study area, with reference to previous research results [40,41] and combined with the actual situation in the study area, the following formula was calculated:…”

Grassland Conservation Effectiveness of National Nature Reserves in Northern China

“…China has been investing heavily in ecological conservation through the settlement and management of the NNRs [70,71]; unfortunately, there is still a knowledge gap in the present assessment of the effectiveness of China's NNRs [72], especially for the NNRs in the IMAR [36]. In light of this knowledge gap, we formulated an effectiveness score to study the effectiveness of the NNRs among different types of reserves.…”

“…We could come to the conclusion that the NNRs on sandy or desert steppes in the IMAR are facing the risk of slow greening but fierce disturbance. Considering this, more protection efforts are needed to solve this urgent problem [36].…”

“…Although an increasing number of studies have been conducted to analyze PA effectiveness, to the best of our knowledge, few studies have considered the effectiveness of NNRs on grasslands in the IMAR [36]. It is no wonder that assessing the effectiveness of NNRs is still the bedrock for directing adaptive PA management [37], especially for understanding the strict NNR management of ecological barriers such as the IMAR.…”