BEST HABITAT: Waterfowls take to the air in the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve in Qinghai Province. The reserve is the origin of the Yangtze River, Yellow River and Lancang River (XINHUA)

The recent forest carbon sequestration project, or ecosystem services project, has also brought new hope to poverty alleviation in areas around the reserves. Forest carbon sequestration refers to the plants' practice of absorbing carbon dioxide and fixing it in vegetation or soil, which will reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air.

A carbon sequestration project centering on the forest is an important part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), one of the "flexibility mechanisms" defined in the Kyoto Protocol that allows a country with an emission-reduction or emission-limitation commitment under the protocol to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries. But, in the current framework of CDM, such projects are not being paid due attention.

The Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009 put forest carbon sequestration into the blueprint of carbon trading in the United Nations Collaborative Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD). Therefore, a sequestration project can bring in financial support for community nature reserves and also provide revenues for communities.

The IUCN calls for REDD to highlight the rights of indigenous residents in communities. And it proposes the establishment of community nature reserves as a policy plank.

BREATHTAKING BEAUTY: A brook flows through the cloud forests in the Jiaxi Nature Reserve in Hainan Province, which is at an altitude of more than 1,300 meters (XINHUA)	PROTECTING FORESTS: Working staff of the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Yunnan Province measure and record the growth condition of a Chinese banyan tree in the tropical rain forest there (XINHUA)

Li Qiang (senior engineer with the China National Pulp and Paper Research Institute):

Biodiversity includes all the details of an ecosystem: plants, animals and microorganisms. These species mix together and form small ecosystems which may seem the same but are different in many ways. So biodiversity is formed. Meanwhile, because of species' co-evolution, many variables will appear when they produce offspring, thus forming genetic diversity.

As a member of Friends of Nature, an environmental protection NGO, I have observed birds for more than 10 years. Every week, the members of the organization observe birds in the Temple of Heaven and the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. We also go to the Songshan National Nature Reserve in Beijing, the Dongzhai Nature Reserve in Henan Province, the Dongying Yellow River Delta in Shandong Province and the East Dongting Lake National Nature Reserve in Hunan Province. With birds channelling us to nature, we gradually came to understand the significance of nature conservation and biodiversity protection.

Everyone can experience the beauty of biodiversity if they do two things. One is observing nature around you: the place where you live or work and every piece of land you walk. They all present the beauty of nature. The second is observing nature continuously. You cannot know about sparrows, the most common resident birds, from only one or two glimpses. And you cannot know the secret of viola philippica, a plant of early spring, without eight or 10 years' observation.

The current extensive crisis over biodiversity protection is, to a large degree, a result of a paucity of people's knowledge about nature. Because of ignorance, people harm nature without feeling anything; due to the ignorance, people do not know what to do about species destruction incidents. Also, the legal system lacks a positive response in biodiversity protection.

To make more people understand the significance of biodiversity, the simplest way is to encourage them to observe birds, to learn about plants, to enjoy the sea and to climb the mountains. Enjoy the beauty of nature, and then you can feel the pain of nature.