The Living with People, Wetlands and Urban project restored an abandoned, polluted mudflat in the heart of Shenzhen into a living wetland. The project then established China's first nature school, turning ecological restoration into a platform for public education and engagement — and creating a national model for how cities can help millions of people reconnect with nature.
Rapid urbanization in Shenzhen turned a coastal wetland in the city's Deep Bay area into an unmanaged, illegally fished and heavily polluted mudflat, severing residents' connection to nature and leaving the city without a functioning coastal ecosystem. At the same time, China lacked an established model for nature education, leaving a generation of urban residents with limited opportunities to learn about or engage with ecological conservation.
- Restored a polluted urban lake into a functioning wetland ecosystem through desilting, sewage interception, flood management and water exchange
- Built an aquatic corridor connecting the site to Shenzhen Bay and converted a 5-kilometer border patrol road into an ecological footpath, opening physical access between the restored habitat and the wider bay ecosystem
- Repurposed three historical sentry boxes into bird-watching stations and added hydrophilic plank roads, giving residents direct, low-impact ways to observe wetland wildlife
- Established China's first nature school in 2014, turning the restored site into an ongoing public education platform
- Created a standardized nature school model — including a dedicated classroom, curriculum and volunteer teaching team — that enabled replication across China
- Trained 800 volunteer environmental educators through the "China Coastal Wetland Guardians" program, building a delivery workforce that allowed education to scale beyond paid staff
- Codified the operating model into national industry standards and a "green book" for nature schools, enabling replication by other institutions rather than keeping the model proprietary to the Overseas Chinese Town (OCT) Wetland initiative
- Diversified funding across corporate donations, government and public welfare funds, giving the project a funding structure durable enough to sustain it for over a decade
- Earned recognition as a Global Star Wetland Center at COP14 and as a COP15 biodiversity case study
- Restored 68.5 hectares of wetland habitat in the center of Shenzhen
- Turned a degraded mudflat into a functioning piece of climate infrastructure and a habitat for migratory birds and wildlife
- Delivered nearly 10,000 educational activities over 11 years, reaching 1 million direct participants and an estimated 10 million people indirectly
- Established nature education as a mainstream urban activity
- Seeded 107 national-level nature school pilot projects across China, establishing Shenzhen's approach as the national template for nature education
- Drove measurable economic spillover, with surrounding land and housing values rising in connection with the site's environmental quality
- Extended the model into rural areas through the China Nature Classroom plan, establishing nine additional nature classrooms in Sichuan, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and Guangdong
