On August 24, the opening ceremony of the 2020 National Forestry and Grassland Science and Technology Week was held in Beijing. The theme of the event is “Harmonious coexistence between human and nature? Build a beautiful China hand in hand. Nan Zhibiao, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, gave an online report titled “Entering ornamental grasslands”.

Nan Zhibiao introduced that ornamental grasslands are grasslands which through which a variety of ecological service products could be acquired by landscaping. The total area of ornamental grasslands in China is around 51.247 million hectares, accounting for 12.8% of the total grassland area in China. These ornamental grasslands could be divided into intensively managed grasslands such as golf and football fields and city and park grasslands, etc.; semi-extensively managed grasslands such as those used for expressway and railway slope protection and airport lawns; extensively managed grasslands such as those in national parks and nature reserves. The grassland area under extensive management is the largest, accounting for 96.1% of total ornamental grassland area and 12.3% of national grassland area.

Ornamental grasslands are useful for water conservation, climate regulation, windbreak and sand fixation, soil erosion control, carbon sequestration, etc., and also cooling and energy conservation. They too can generate more output value. In view of the current situation of multi-management of ornamental grasslands in China, Nan Zhibiao suggested a unified and coordinated management organization be formed as soon as possible to improve production and management efficiency, so that full play could be given to ornamental grasslands and its development could be accelerated.

The per capita grassland area of China is 13.2 square meters and the annual output value of the grassland industry is 43 to 71 million US dollars. There remains a big gap compared the Europe and U.S. Therefore, there too is lots of room for development. Nan Zhibiao pointed out that in the development and management of the grassland industry, ecological and agronomic measures should be combined to clearly define the effects of pruning, irrigation and fertilization on grasslands. While such effects above ground should be focused upon, attention should also be paid to effects below ground. In addition, for semi-extensively managed grasslands, such as expressway slope protection, regulation measures of near-natural restoration should be adopted, and the airport grasslands should be planted with highly toxic endophytic fungi to minimize the interference of birds to aircrafts. Meanwhile, he emphasized on the management of grasslands in national parks and nature reserves and that rational use should be made out of such grassland upon clearly understanding  carrying capacity of such natural resources.

Nan Zhibiao, professor of Lanzhou University, is one of the leaders of grassland science in China. He is currently Director of Academic Committee of the State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agroecosystem, Deputy Director and Director of Academic Committee of China Grassland Development Strategy Research Center. Professor Nan has been engaged in grass production, scientific research and teaching for over 50 years. He was awarded National Labor Medal, as well as Lifetime Achievement Award of Chinese Society for Plant Pathology and Chinese Grassland Society, etc.