On October 22, during the 17th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released outstanding cases of biodiversity finance in China. The case “Biodiversity Credit Accounting and Trading Practice at the Yancheng Coastal Wetland Rare Birds National Nature Reserve, Jiangsu”, jointly submitted by Renmin University of China, Jiangsu Huanghai Financial Holding Group and other institutions, was selected.

Yancheng Yellow Sea Wetland serves as a critical hub along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway and an important stopover and wintering site within the global migratory bird network. Over the years, Yancheng has continuously advanced wetland restoration, Spartina alterniflora control, fishery-to-wetland conversion and improvement of migratory bird habitats, providing shelter, stopover and wintering grounds for rare species such as red-crowned cranes. Nevertheless, ecological conservation entails huge investment, long cycles and weak direct economic returns. In addition, the absence of a unified quantitative standard for ecological performance has hindered the inflow of more financial and social capital into conservation projects.

To address this challenge, in 2023, a team led by Professor Lan Hong from the School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Deputy Director of the Ecological Finance Research Center, in collaboration with Jiangsu Huanghai Financial Holding Group Co., Ltd., the Administration of Jiangsu Yancheng National Nature Reserve for Rare Birds, the People’s Bank of China Yancheng Branch and other partners, developed a methodology for biodiversity credit accounting of coastal wetlands, establishing rules on baseline setting, additionality, indicator accounting, monitoring and verification. Taking 2019 as the baseline, the team accounted for the conservation outcomes of 23,700 hectares of wetland in the reserve from 2019 to 2023, generating 3.4047 million tradable units of biodiversity credits. This transformed conservation outcomes from qualitative descriptions into measurable, verifiable and tradable credit assets.

In September 2025, Jiangsu Guoxin Rundong Offshore Wind Power Co., Ltd. purchased 26,761 units of biodiversity credits for RMB 1.5 million, marking China’s first transaction of biodiversity credits. It represents a pivotal leap for China from methodological exploration to market-based practice in biodiversity credit.