China’s Redline Approach: Can Ecological Redlines provide a pathway to 30 by 30 in NSW?

Joyce (Yueh) Zhang, NPA Intern

What is China’s Ecological Redline?

China’s Ecological Conservation Redline (ECR) policy includes strict “No Go” zones where development is not allowed. ECR zones cover biodiversity hotspots, key water sources, fragile soils, coastal protection, and other areas critical for national ecological security. In simple words, a red line prioritises protection of what China believes is the most important places for human wellbeing. Official data reports about 3.19 million km² of redline areas nationwide (roughly around one-third of China’s land), with 18% of China’s land covered in fully protected areas.[1] ECR is a vastly different approach to Australia’s strategy of following the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) model, in that it that its primary objective is not conservation, but rather ecological security and sustainable development.[2] The protection of biodiversity is a secondary benefit. Protected areas, including Nature Reserves and National Parks, are still a central pillar of China’s conservation agenda but ECR also includes unique zoning, such as Ecological Function Zones (for critical ecosystem services like water supply). Together with national biodiversity plans, China presents ECR as its model to meet the global 30×30 goal.[3]

China’s progress on fully protected areas as a meaningful contribution to the 30 by 30 terrestrial target

China is relatively new to national park creation yet has rapidly expanded its reserve system in a short amount of time, boosting its percentage of fully protected nature reserves from less than 10% in 2015 to about 18% in 2025 with the establishment of its first national parks. Trial sites for national parks were established in 2016 and by 2025, and China has officially designated five national parks:

Sanjiangyuan National Park
Giant Panda National Park
Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park
Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park
Wuyishan National Park

The good news for biodiversity is that China’s parks safeguard nearly 30% of China’s key terrestrial wildlife species, such as its iconic Panda[4], in integrated mega-reserves. China has further identified another 49 candidate national park areas, with the goal of establishing the world’s largest national park system by 2035. These parks span a variety of habitat types from alpine peaks, remote glaciers, rainforests, high altitude wetlands and vast deserts. China has designed these parks to meet IUCN criteria primarily for conservation with only limited tourism under strict regulatory guidelines.[5]

National parks are the highest level of protection under China’s strategy to meet 30 by 30 target, with the following hierarchy of protection:

Nature Reserves, with the National Nature Reserve system including national parks and nature reserves (fully protected areas closest to IUCN I & II).
Local Nature Reserves, managed by provincial or county levels of government, fully protected but less strictly enforced.
Special Areas, including Scenic Historic Interest Areas, Forest Parks, Wetland Parks, Geoparks, all partially protected.
Ecological Function Zones, a zoning and planning tool to manage ecosystem services like water conservation or soil retention or biodiversity maintenance.
Ecological Protection Red Lines, is not a protected area category but are ‘No Go’ zones for development and include ecologically critical areas. EPRLs often overlap with National Parks and Reserves and Ecological Function Zones.

The EPRL are essentially additional zoning overlapping other reserve categories, adding an additional layer of protection as an ecological safety net. They are non-negotiable red lines, more inflexible than the majority of Australia’s reserve categories. This is because Australia’s reserve system can be affected by political cycles and reviews with governments tinkering with loopholes, or sometimes even ignoring reserve category criteria, to enable protected areas to be downgraded, downsized or open to resource activities — as has occurred in NSW with the government turning a blind eye to fishing in six ‘no take’ marine sanctuaries in the Batemans Marine Park.

It is a pleasant surprise for us to learn that China’s protected area system, with the overlapping EPRL, protects an incredible 95% of threatened plant species in their natural habitat.[6] By contrast, about half of Australia’s imperilled threatened species are protected in our reserve system.[7] Despite NSW’s small reserve system, about 84% of its 900 threatened species in NSW are protected in its reserve network [8] — however, there is always room for improvement.

Understanding progress in NSW

Australia also promises to protect and conserve 30% of land and 30% of marine areas by 2030, but there is no obligation on the states and territories to apply this target locally. Our system is vastly different to that of China’s. Our reliance on fully protected areas (national parks, nature reserves) is complicated by federal, state, local and Indigenous land tenure and claims and varying political systems. It is a more de-centralised system, requiring strong stakeholder consultation and case-by-case decisions. Australia follows the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) approach in the National Reserve System guidelines, a conservation-driven model that focuses on biodiversity protection outcomes, aiming to protect 30% of every bioregion so ecosystems and species are represented, connected, and resilient.

As of June 2025, around 24% of Australia’s land contributes as fully protected to the 30 by 30 target.[9] Australia is home to the second national park in the world in NSW, Sydney’s Royal National Park, established in 1879, as well as the world’s first Marine Protected Area. Despite our expertise in protected area management, more than a hundred years onward only about 10% of NSW terrestrial area and less than 7% of its waters are protected.

Progress is happening on a federal level but in NSW, progress is far too slow, with numerous political roadblocks presented by our democratic system. Even though our NSW Government may aspire to reach 30×30, it must contend with a hung parliament with democratically elected representatives who oppose national park creation.

We urgently need to lift ambition and could do so by being more strategic about where we protect next.[10] Several conservation experts warn that just “adding easy hectares” is not enough, we need to prioritise places that are ecologically important, not only administratively convenient.[11]

NSW’s current reserve system — is ecosystem security accounted for?

Current reserve system

While NSW’s legislation does not prescribe ecosystem security as a formal category, management plans for existing national parks refer to ecosystem services like water catchment protection. In the marine space, ecosystem services as a goal is implied in the Marine Estate Management Act, when it comes to the secondary purpose of marine parks which must provide for ‘ecological sustainable development’. Dangerously however, the multi-use approach to marine parks, which seeks to balance Conservation with Social and Economic Objectives, has led to a Marine Protected Area system in NSW whereby community wellbeing has become the key driver, absent of any genuine link to ecological security.

A live policy debate in NSW: “No-go” areas

In the terrestrial space, NSW recently discussed a “redline-like” idea. The Independent (Henry) Review of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 recommended a single spatial tool that puts biodiversity first and identifies “no-go” areas—clear maps that show where development cannot occur because impacts would be serious and irreversible. This is Recommendation 8, and it suggests the tool should be made by the Environment Minister, using scientific criteria, public consultation, and the incorporation of Aboriginal knowledge.[12] It is NPA NSW’s view that if a Red Line approach was adopted for NSW, it could include the category Areas of Outstanding Biodiversity Value (AOBVs), an under-utilised tool under the BC Act, for areas of irreplaceable biodiversity value.

However, while the NSW Government has begun biodiversity law reforms in response to the Henry Review, it has sadly rejected the idea of a Red Line approach. Fortunately, the Federal Government has just announced that it will legislate No Go zones, where developers must keep clear, as a part of their national nature law reform by the end of the year.[13]

What can NSW learn from China’s redline idea?

China’s Red Line approach is similar to the Henry Review’s No Go area policy. The model offers a multilayered approach to protection, which could effectively act as an insurance policy, adding an additional layer of security for existing NSW land and sea reserves, providing a clear Red Line against the clearance or extraction of biodiversity, to prevent the further decline of natural areas. It is also an opportunity to communicate to the public the benefits of existing biodiversity protection to community wellbeing and could offer a pathway to boost the percentage of fully protected areas, utilising the Ecological Security argument of an additional benefit of enhanced-reserve buffer protection for criteria such as water catchments, soil erosion and critical biodiversity loss. A Red Line approach would essentially offer a broad model under which a strict reserve system could be managed alongside other forms of protection.

Beyond fully protected areas, it could also cover areas not formally recognised as protected areas and partially protected areas. Scientists argue that the Red Line approach should essentially be categorised under the IUCN guidelines for Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), areas outside the formal protected area system that effectively conserve biodiversity long-term.[14] This new system could essentially offer a strategic pathway for government to target areas under the Red Line model as candidate areas for future protection within Australia’s reserve system.

To establish such a system, the Red Line approach must be moved forward as a centrepiece of NSW’s Biodiversity Conservation Act reforms, not just the national reforms. A single, publicly accessible No-Go map (as proposed in the Henry Review) would give all stakeholders, particularly developers, resource companies and farmers, clarity over what activities are an impediment not just to biodiversity but to ecological security. It could use the combination of CAR science, climate refugia, and connectivity layers, and ecological function data (e.g., water-source protection), and the Minister could publish updates as new data arrives, so the map becomes a living, trusted tool.[15][16]

A Red Line approach, which identifies additional areas for protection, that offer additional ecological security, could contribute greatly to 30 by 30, offering a strong policy narrative to sell to the public. To close the gap, however, it would need to work in tandem with the CAR principles, prioritising under-represented bioregions and climate refugia, not only “easy” hectares e.g. restoration corridors that reduce extinction risk.[17][18]

A pragmatic conclusion

China’s ECR shows that clear red lines can stop nature loss at scale and give administrators a strong mandate. NSW does not need to copy China’s governance model, but we can appropriate the principle behind China’s ECR policy: draw the line where nature matters most. If NSW adopts a Henry-style no-go map and targets the most ecologically valuable gaps on land and sea, then 30×30 becomes not only a number, but a real path to ecosystem recovery. In our view, this approach balances scientific clarity with public confidence, which is exactly what we need now.[19][20]

[1] https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202308/15/content_WS64db3330c6d0868f4e8de929.html

[2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110505

[3] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/julee-boan/canada-and-chinas-progress-toward-protecting-30-2030

[4] https://english.mee.gov.cn/News_service/media_news/202110/t20211014_956509.shtml

[5] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/china-national-parks-system

[6] https://phys.org/news/2025-07-reveals-china-ecological-red-lines.html

[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320725002320

[8] https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-and-heritage/threatened-species#:~:text=NSW%20National%20Parks%20and%20Wildlife,see%20how%20you%20can%20help .

[9] https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/achieving-30-by-30

[10] https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/land/achieving-30-by-30

[11] https://report.30by30.org.au/2023/11/27/weve-committed-to-protect-30-of-australias-land-by-2030-heres-how-we-could-actually-do-it/

[12] https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/tp/files/186428/Independent%20Review%20of%20the%20Biodiversity%20Conservation%20Act%202016-Final.pdf