On October 25, 2020, the launch meeting of the national science and technology basic resource investigation special project “Investigation of Wild Economic Plant Resources inthe Northeast Forbidden Forest,” led by our university, was held in Harbin.

This project will cover 47,539,100 square hectares of natural forest areas in northeast China, investigating the recovery of non-timber economic plant resources after the logging ban, and the distribution pattern of 500 potential economic plant resources, and focusing on the evaluation of the development and application potential of 100 key economic plants.

The launch of the project marks the official implementation of the first national science and technology special project approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, to support the economic transformation of the forest areas under the “comprehensive commercial logging prohibition policy for natural forests.”

The economic transformation of the forbidden forest in northeast China is both a livelihood and an ecological issue that the Party and the state pay close attention to. The implementation of this project will make up for the lack of data on non-timber plant resources in China’s forbidden forest areas, curb the over-exploitation of underforest resources, and promote the rational distribution and development of the forest plant resources industry.

As the leading unit of this project, our university will serve the economic transformation and development of the northeast forest region with the power of science and technology.

Project team members: Researcher Ma Keping, original Director of the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Researcher Jiang Ming, Director of the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agro-Ecology, CAS, Prof. Dai Yucheng, Director of the Institute of Microbiology, Beijing Forestry University, Researcher Guo Chunjing, President of Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Prof. Hu Baozhong, Dean of Harbin Institute, Researcher Ni Hongwei, Dean of Heilongjiang Academy of Forestry Sciences, the project leaders and the backbone researchers. Nearly 50 people attended the project kick-off meeting.

Liu Shouxin, Member of the Standing Committee of the University Party Committee and Vice President of the University, delivered a welcome speech on behalf of the project support unit, saying that he would actively support the implementation of the project and expects the project to achieve significant results, making contributions to the industrial structure adjustment of the northeast forbidden forest.

Prof. Feng Fujuan, the chief of the project, made a detailed report on the research content, implementation plan and implementation quality control of the project, while Prof. Tang Zhonghua and Prof. Wang Ling made detailed reports on the evaluation of the wild economic plant resources in the forbidden forest and the implementation plan of the database sharing platform.

After hearing the reports of the implementation plan of the project and the subjects, the project expert group affirmed the importance and rationality of the project design, evaluated the implementation plan, and put forward valuable suggestions on the resource collection, evaluation standard, data storage, platform data exchange and docking of the project.

Prof. Feng Fujuan said that the implementation plan will be perfected and carefully revised according to the experts’ suggestions to successfully achieve the expected goals of the project.