A national park in the South China Sea is needed to better preserve the marine ecology in the region, deputies from China’s top legislature said Tuesday on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Protection of unique and rich resources in the South China Sea has always been given great importance, especially when some of the resources, such as coral reefs, are very fragile, Deng Xiaogang, an NPC deputy, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

A national park should be the next move to further protect the region’s ecology, said Deng, also head of the Department of Ecology and Environment Protection of South China’s Hainan Province.

China released a plan in September 2017 to build 10 national parks by the end of 2020. The planned parks include the protection of pandas, rivers and forests, with none of them involving marine life.

Hainan is qualified to build the first national marine park, and could learn from the experience of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Deng said.

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1092124.shtml