Jiang Gaoming

Jiang Gaoming is a professor and Ph.D. tutor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany.

He is also vice secretary-general of the UNESCO China-MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Committee and a member of the UNESCO MAB Urban Group. He is known for his concepts of “urban vegetation" and allowing damaged ecosystems to recover naturally. and his master's degree in Botany at the Institute of Botany Academia Sinica in 1988.

Jiang was the first person to chart the pollution history of Chengde in northern China. He was the first to explain why ancient pine trees in gardens were dying. He has also established models for monitoring sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution in woody plants.

Jiang noted the effects of tourism and urbanization on the Chengde Mountain Resort (also known as the Summer Villa estate), which is the largest existing imperial garden in China. He noted that international meetings are often bothered by invasive species. This could cause biological catastrophes and incur major economic losses. For example, the State Forestry Bureau said last year that there were more than 290 alien species on the mainland, causing estimated losses of 56 billion yuan (HK$63.79 billion) a year.

Desertification Jiang is eager to control desertification but he criticizes the government's policy of planting one species of trees. "Ecology is on everyone's lips, but ecology does not mean blindly planting trees," Xinhua News Agency reported Jiang as saying.

Later Jiang's team tried a different approach. A section of grassland in the Bayinhushuo Gacha was fenced off and no grazing was allowed.