China has made solid progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and will continue to strengthen biodiversity protection at home and abroad, Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu said on Monday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Kunming Dialogue on Collective Progress in the Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Support of the Global Review, Huang said China has made significant progress on 21 of the framework's 27 national targets.

Adopted at COP15 — or the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity — in late 2022 under China's presidency, the framework sets four long-term goals for 2050 and 23 action-oriented targets for 2030.

Since COP15, China has issued guidelines on further strengthening biodiversity conservation, advanced a national park-based protected area system and drawn red lines for ecological conservation, Huang said.

More than 30 percent of China's land area now falls within those red lines, covering 95 percent of the country's rare and endangered species and their habitats, he said.

China has also continued to implement major biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration projects. Nearly 500 wild plant and animal species in the country have seen their threat status downgraded, while the populations of more than 300 rare and endangered wild species have steadily increased, Huang said.

Beyond its domestic efforts, China has continued to participate in global biodiversity governance. At the COP15 leaders' summit, China announced the establishment of the Kunming Biodiversity Fund with an initial contribution of 1.5 billion yuan ($223.5 million). So far, the fund has approved two batches of 31 projects benefiting 45 developing countries, Huang said.

Global action to implement the framework is moving forward, Huang said, but the current pace is still insufficient to meet the 2030 goals. "How to translate goals and commitments into governance results, and into practical outcomes that protect nature and benefit people, is a common task before us all," he said.

The first global report on progress under the framework, a major component of the Kunming Dialogue, shows that countries are stepping up efforts to implement the framework, but significant gaps remain, according to officials attending the event.

At a news conference on the sidelines of the event on Monday, Zhang Yujun, head of the nature and eco-conservation department at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said 172 parties had set national targets aligned with the framework, while 107 parties had updated their national biodiversity strategies and action plans.

"Efforts in ecological protection and restoration worldwide have been further strengthened, with an additional 193 million hectares of land placed under ecological restoration," Zhang said.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the report showed "unprecedented engagement" driven by the Kunming-Montreal framework.

"But the world is not yet moving at the scale and pace needed to achieve the targets by 2030," Schomaker said, adding that biodiversity finance, capacity-building, monitoring plans and stronger national commitments are still needed where implementation gaps remain.