Ecological gains

Although Yancheng will experience some economic losses, Wu, from the bidding office, said there are obvious ecological gains.

By placing its mudflats under preservation, China has acquired its first intertidal wetland heritage site.

Due to land reclamation, encroachment of spartina (also known as cord grass), environmental pollution, overfishing and overcultivation, Wu told Global Times that coastal wetland has suffered the most, compared with other types. From 2003 to 2013, China witnessed the loss of 1.3 million hectares of such wetland.

He said that under the original plan, migratory bird sanctuaries included 16 nature reserves in Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei and Liaoning provinces. However, he said protection measures for many of these reserves have been unsatisfactory and do not meet the requirements for a World Heritage Site.

Although the Phase 1 site includes only two nature reserves in Yancheng, the 186,400-hectare nominated area occupies 42 percent of that planned for the bird sanctuaries. As a result, international experts suggested that Yancheng bid first. It did so and was accepted.

Wu said: "The importance of our wetlands, especially the intertidal mudflats, to migratory birds on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway has been hard to match elsewhere in the country."

The flyway is one of the world's nine leading migratory routes. In the north, it stretches from Siberia in Russia to Alaska, and in the south it encompasses Australia and New Zealand. It passes through 22 countries with some 55 migratory wading bird or shorebird species using it. The total number of birds flying the route is estimated at about 5 million.

Yancheng is in the middle of the flyway. Wu said that every year some 3 million migratory birds, especially shorebirds, make stopovers, breed or spend the winter on wetlands in the area, especially Tiaozini.

Of these birds, more than 80 percent of the world's spoon-billed sandpipers, a critically endangered sparrow-sized shorebird, make stopovers during their migration between their breeding grounds in Siberia and their wintering grounds in the south. "There are only about 200 breeding pairs and 100 of these young birds left in the world," Wu said.