From May 10 to 18, 2021, the on-site inspection and pre-acceptance meeting was organised to advance the progress of the program Ecological Protection and Biological Resources Development and Utilization Technology and Demonstration Research in Forest Areas in Northeast China, a key program of the "13th Five-Year" National Key Research and Development Program on Ecological Restoration and Protection in Typical Fragile Areas.   

The meeting was co-organised by the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the Northeast Institute of Geography & AgroEcology, CAS, and was jointly hosted by the Heilongjiang Daxing'anling Administrative Office and Daxing'anling Forestry Group Company. 

The experts who attended the meeting included Academician Fu Bojie, Academician Yu Guirui, Prof. Liu Shirong, Prof. Wang Yanfen (executive vice president of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences), the other overseers of the program, the administrative leaders of IAE, and Wang Lei, head of the Ecological Environment Division of China Agenda 21 Management Center, Ministry of Science and Technology. 

At the meeting, Prof. He Xingyuan, chief expert of the research program, gave a talk on the overall status of the program. PIs of each project also talked about their own research objectives, task completion status, key findings, and problems that need to be solved urgently. 

The program overseers recommended that researchers of the program should make more efforts in highlighting the scientific and technological innovation, improving self-evaluation reports, realizing key goals of the projects, and in understanding how to meet national and regional scientific and technological needs during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. These suggestions provided strategic guidance for the final evaluation and acceptance of the program. 

During the meeting, IAE signed strategic cooperation agreements with Daxing'anling Administrative Office and Daxing'anling Forestry Group Company. 

After the meeting, the expert team inspected the ecological protection status of the Nanwenghe (Nanweng River) forest-wetland and the industrial transformation status of Chaoyue Group and Arctic Ice Group Companies. Also, the expert team listened to the reports made by Hanjiayuanzi and Shibazhan Forestry Bureaus on wild blueberry production, quality-improving, and ecological protection issues. In addition, the experts held seminars with some of the personnel in Huma County, Tahe County, Mohe County and Huzhong District to discuss the constraints of green economic development in these forest areas, which could help researchers find out how their research results can be applied in the Daxing'anling forest area.  

The meeting was fully supported by the Daxing'anling Administrative Office, Daxing'anling Forestry Group Co., Ltd., and governments and party committees of the Huma, Tahe, and Mohe counties (districts). Sun Liang, deputy commissioner of the Daxing'anling Administrative Office, Wang Xinyu, director of Science and Technology Bureau, accompanied the on-site inspection and attended the meeting.