ABSTRACT
In 1986, a British visitor strolled through the steamy forests of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, walking on a trail later named in his honour. This chapter expresses that neither vision of the nature state is accurate. In exploring the rise of nature conservation in China in the late twentieth century, the chapter expresses that conservation was always built through transnational exchange. It describes some of China's early conservation efforts. This history has often been ignored by dominant historical narratives that characterize Mao-era China as antithetical to conservation. China is often imagined as one of the world's least environmentally friendly countries, yet there was a time when it was celebrated by some international organizations as a leader in tree planting and soil and water conservation. The chapter explores in more detail how in the 1980s China began a serious engagement with international environmental organizations. During the 1980s, tropical rainforests were newly seen as uniquely valuable and vulnerable.
