On November 13, the inaugural meeting of the Northeast Asia Biodiversity Research Center, initiated by NEFU, was held in Aulin College, room 101. The meeting was presided over by Li Fengri, Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice President of NEFU, and was held both online and offline. Nearly 100 experts from more than 10 universities and scientific research institutions were present at the event and celebrated the establishment of China's first scientific research center focusing on biodiversity research in Northeast Asia.

On October 12 this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) that "Biodiversity makes Earth full of vigor and vitality, and lays the foundation for human survival and development. Protecting biodiversity helps protect Earth, our common homeland, and contributes to humanity’s sustainable development."

Northeast Asia is one of the most species-rich regions on earth. Strengthening the research on biodiversity in Northeast Asia will help to establish a scientific evaluation system for a series of issues such as biodiversity status, weak links, and legal effects of policies, so as to improve the scientific and effective conservation of biodiversity.

President Li Bin delivered a speech at the meeting. He said that NEFU’s zoologists and botanists of the older generation have gone through untold hardships, traversed the length and breadth of Northeast China Region and published many academic masterpieces, laying the foundation for the biodiversity conservation in Northeast China and for international exchanges and cooperation with research institutions in Northeast Asian countries such as Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea, and yielding substantial accomplishments in biodiversity protection. Adhering to the concept of openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, the Northeast Asia Biodiversity Research Center will cooperate with universities and scientific research institutes worldwide, integrating high-quality resources inside and outside the University, and focusing on the strategic status and scientific problems of Northeast Asia biodiversity conservation from a global viewpoint; it will also carry out some basic and applicable conservation strategy research, and solve key problems through joint and integrated research, contributing the wisdom of both NEFU and its partners for global biodiversity protection, and for the harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

Yan Chenggao, Deputy Director of the Nature Reserve Management Department of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Ma Jian, Deputy Director of the Department of Ecology and Environment of Heilongjiang Province, and Jiang Ming, Director of the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, spoke at the meeting. They said that current ecological and environmental problems such as the destruction of natural habitats, over exploitation and utilization of resources, environmental pollution, invasion of alien species and climate change have led to a serious loss in biodiversity. The establishment of this center, which complies with the global trend of green and sustainable development and integrates the long-term and interdisciplinary research achievements, is bound to raise biodiversity conservation to a higher level.

The Academic Committee of the center is headed by Ma Keping, a researcher at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its members are experts from universities and institutes such as China Academy of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, Beijing Forestry University, Jilin Agricultural University, Seoul National University, University of Tokyo, and Kumamoto University. There are six research teams in the center: Plant Diversity Research Team, Animal Diversity Research Team, Insect Diversity Research Team, Microbial Diversity Research Team, Genetic Diversity Research Team, and Ecosystem Research Team. Each team will establish a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system, improve the scientific expertise of policy-making, conduct in-depth research on scientific issues such as the current situation, change trends and maintenance mechanisms of biodiversity in Northeast Asia in the context of climate change and global economic competition, promote the training of professional personnel in universities and localities with scientific research, strengthen the demand-oriented combination of the efforts of enterprises, universities and research institutions, and help the construction of ecological civilization, rural revitalization and green development.

At the meeting, the keynote speeches were presented by Ma Keping, Ma Jinshuang, a researcher at Beijing Botanical Garden, and Jiang Guangshun, a professor at Northeast Forestry University, and presided over by Professor Wang Chuankuan from the NEFU School of Forestry. They introduced the current and future research on plant and animal diversity in Northeast Asia from the perspective of the Northeast Asia plant diversity digitization program and plant taxonomy, and the monitoring and conservation of Siberia tigers along the Sino-Russian border.

In his concluding speech, Li Fengri pointed out that against the background of the increasingly serious global biodiversity loss, the establishment of the Northeast Asia Biodiversity Research Center follows the spirit of Xi Jinping's thought on ecological civilization and the spirit of his speech at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15).