HAIKOU, April 11. /TASS/. China intends to take environmental protection in the southern province of Hainan to a new level and facilitate efforts in creating a tropical rainforest park on the island. According to Xinhua, by the end of 2020, the National Rainforest Park should be created on the island.

"Being one of the ecosystems with the richest biodiversity, tropical forests have an important ecological function, including climate regulation and water conservation," the agency quotes the researcher from the Hainan Nature Reserve, Ingelin Jiang Shuai.

In January 2019, the National Rainforest Park pilot zone was created in the Hainan Province for protection and restoration of the ecosystem. It covers an area of ​​more than 4,400 square kilometers in the highlands in the central part of the island. The pilot zone includes five nature reserves at the state level and four at the provincial level.

The National Rainforest Park on the Island of Hainan, which has been actively building the country's biggest free trade pilot zone in recent years, is part of the government’s plan to turn the province into a “pilot zone of national environmental civilization.”

“The construction of the park is crucial to maintaining the initial state and integrity of the rainforest ecosystem, as well as preserving rare and endangered species of animals and plants on Hainan,” said Xia Fei, head of the provincial forestry department. With an area of ​​less than 0.05% of the total size of the country, the park is home to about 20% of amphibians, 33% of reptiles and 36% of all bird species in China.

Hainan authorities are counting on the fact that the creation of the National Rainforest Park will draw more Chinese and foreign tourists to the island. According to statistics, the total area of tropical forests in the Hainan Province in 2018 exceeded 659,000 hectares. Since the nineties of the last century, the authorities completely banned deforestation on the island, which paved the way for vast state-protected zones in the province.