in Ecology

Improved forest protection at Chinese heritage relic sites

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Abstract

Rapid deforestation and accelerating human pressures throughout the twentieth century reshaped forest landscapes worldwide, raising urgent questions about the role of heritage relics in ecological resilience. We compiled a national database of 363,282 heritage relic sites in China, including 307,666 heritage trees, 8,155 traditional villages, 5,060 cultural heritage sites and 42,401 religious sites, and integrated it with historical forest coverage data (1900–2020) and a high-resolution human footprint index (2020). Here, using geostatistical analysis and machine learning, we show that heritage relics function as long-term refugia, preserving forests during periods of deforestation and enhancing recovery during large-scale restoration. Heritage trees and traditional villages are associated with higher forest coverage and faster regeneration than religious or cultural heritage sites, especially in southern China and in regions of lower anthropogenic pressure. Yet these protective effects diminish as human footprints intensify, revealing the conditional resilience of relic-associated forests. Our findings demonstrate that biocultural heritage is not merely a repository of cultural values but also a dynamic ecological infrastructure that sustains biodiversity and ecosystem services over centuries. Integrating relic protection into conservation strategies offers an underused pathway for achieving global biodiversity and sustainability targets, including the Kunming–Montreal global biodiversity framework and the sustainable development goals.

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Fig. 1: Spatial distribution of heritage relics and representative preserved forest fragments.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Forest coverage dynamics at heritage relics and across China from 1900 to 2020.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: Human footprint and forest coverage variability across heritage relics in China.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 4: Forest coverage dynamics at heritage relics in China from 1900 to 2020.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 5: Relative influence of human and environmental factors on forest coverage at heritage relics.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Data availability

The national database of 363,282 heritage relic sites in China is available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28204430 (ref. 71). The historical forest coverage dataset is available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28200869 (ref. 72). Global human footprint records (2000–2018) are available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16571064 (ref. 73).

Code availability

Data were processed and analysed using Microsoft Excel (v.2023), ArcGIS (v.10.8), R (v.4.3.1) and Python (v.3.12). The code used in this study is available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30336364 (ref. 74).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China—grant nos. 32530071 (Z.T.), 32025025 (Z.T.), 32588202 (Z.T.), 424B2014 (J.C.) and 32301327 (L.H.); the Science and Technology Planning Project of the Yunnan Provincial Science and Technology Department—grant no. 202303AC100009 (Z.T.) and the Peking University–BHP ‘Carbon and Climate’ Wei-Ming PhD Scholars Program—grant no. WM202410 (J.C.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation Structure, Function and Construction (VegLab), Institute of Ecology, and College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jinlong Chen, Yun-Hao Bai, Li Huang & Zhiyao Tang

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Xiao Huang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation Structure, Function and Construction (VegLab) and School of Ecology and Environment Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

    Li Huang

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  1. Jinlong Chen
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Contributions

Z.T. and L.H. conceived and designed the study. J.C. compiled the data, performed the analyses and wrote the initial draft. Y.-H.B. and X.H. contributed to drafting the paper and interpreting the results. All authors contributed to revising the paper.

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Li Huang or Zhiyao Tang.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Charles Cannon, Alessandro Chiarucci, Chai-Shian Kua and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Chen, J., Bai, YH., Huang, X. et al. Improved forest protection at Chinese heritage relic sites.
Nat Sustain (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-026-01846-3

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