After being declared extinct, the ancient cliff cypress — a 300-million-year-old “living fossil” — has staged a stunning comeback in Southwest China”s Chongqing, thanks to a two-decade-long conservation effort that is now earning global recognition.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature classified the species as “Extinct in the Wild” in 1998. Now, of the roughly 10,000 mature cliff cypresses existing in the wild, about 70 percent are in Chongqing, around the Xuebaoshan National Nature Reserve in Kaizhou district.
Over the past two decades, significant progress has been made thanks to the reserve’s collaboration with the Mayun Forest Farm, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and the Chongqing Institute of Medicinal Plant Cultivation.
Kaizhou established China’s first regional resources bank for the tree, achieving artificial propagation at a massive scale. Other conservation efforts, such as ex-situ conservation and adaptive cultivation, are underway in several parts of the country and have made experimental breakthroughs.
This local success offers a model for global biodiversity restoration and sustainable use. Last November, at the 20th New Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Awards Ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, Kaizhou’s practice of protecting and sustainably utilizing cliff cypress won the Global Model of Ecological Restoration and Protection Award.