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For decades, China has implemented restoration programs on a large scale, thanks to its capacity to set policy and mobilize funding resources. An understanding of China's restoration achievements and remaining challenges will help to guide future efforts to restore 30% of its diverse ecosystems under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Here we summarize the major transitions in China's approach to ecosystem restoration since the 1970s, with a focus on the underlying motivations for restoration, approaches to ecosystem management, and financing mechanisms. Whereas China's restoration efforts were predominantly guided by the delivery of certain ecosystem functions and services in earlier decades, more recently it has come to emphasize the restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Accordingly, the focal ecosystems, approaches, and financing mechanisms of restoration have also been considerably diversified. This evolution is largely guided by the accumulation of scientific evidence and past experiences. We highlight the key challenges facing China's restoration efforts and propose future directions to improve restoration effectiveness, with regard to goal setting, monitoring, stakeholder involvement, adaptive management, resilience under climate change, and financing. China has been engaged in ecosystem restoration efforts for decades, but recent changes in what defines 'restoration' call for new approaches. In this essay, Li et al. highlight China's previous ecosystem restoration achievements and the changes needed to restore its diverse ecosystems under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a measure of ecosystems' contribution to human well-being, the concept of Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) is an integrated monetary index for the evaluation of final ecosystem services, which has attracted widespread attention around the world. In China, both national and local governments have launched a series of GEP accounting pilot projects, with the aim to incorporate this new concept into real world decision-making. However, a critical review of these practices remains lacking, especially regarding their current status and problems. In this study, by performing a systematic review and data integration of current literature and government documents, we comprehensively described the GEP accounting practices in China, including pilot project's coverage, accounting methods, and policy application. Then, we identified five major problems in current GEP accounting practices in China, which prevent GEP from being accurately measured in the short term. We proposed that GEP accounting should be a constantly evolving process with both long-term and short-term improvement goals. More in detail, the accuracy issues in GEP accounting require longer periods of time to resolve; while its repeatability, comparability, and applicability should be improved in the short term, so that it can be incorporated into decision-making. In response to these challenges, we suggested the adaptation of GEP accounting index screening principles as a possible future direction, which can help to apply GEP results in the current stages of decision making. By improving GEP concept and accounting, it will be possible to establish a unified comparable GEP accounting system and reduce the gap between the GEP and decision-making. • GEP accounting has received extensive attention from the Chinese government. • GEP accounting requires a co-evolution of accuracy and applicability. • Five problems that prevent GEP from being accurately accounted were identified. • Future GEP accounting results should be repeatable, comparable and applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Intermediate and final ecosystem disservices should be differentiated. • Functional classification of disservices helps people studying their effects. • Economic gains from services outweighed the losses from disservices in Beijing. • Both services and disservices effects should be considered in planning. Ecosystem disservices (EDS) is an important form of social-ecological interactions and can strongly influence people's perception of nature. However, compare to ecosystem services (ES), current studies on EDS are still very limited especially from the perspective of classification and valuation. Here, we firstly proposed a function-based classification system to better explain the general effects of EDS. Then, we used Beijing, the capital of China, as a case study to value three common urban EDS (excessive decrease in water quantity, plant-related diseases and infrastructure damage) there. The results suggested that the total EDS value of Beijing was approximately 10.54 billion RMB/year in 2019, which equaled about 5.13% of the total value of five important ecosystem services (food and raw material production, climate regulation, environmental quality regulation, soil retention and ecotourism). The finding showed that although EDS caused considerable financial loss, the potential economic gains from ecosystem services could still greatly outweigh the loss and therefore supported the current urban greening expansion policy in Beijing. Our study attempted to promote the bridging of ecosystem services and disservices studies and call for more equal consideration of both ES and EDS to create more compressive and sustainable planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We utilized the Markov-PLUS model to explore woodland growth by setting up a no-policy scenario. • We analyzed ecosystem service trade-offs and bundles at dual scales. • Woodland growth was more influenced by proximity to cropland following the implementation of the policy. • The ecosystem services trade-offs showed a decrease after the policy implementation. Forest can provide multiple benefits, such as supplying a variety of ecosystem services. However, the planet is currently at risk of deforestation as a result of increased urbanization and growing food demand. Countries around the world have introduced a wide range of policies to mitigate this issue. In China, the Linyi City government has launched the cross-county forest credit market transactions (CFCMT) policy, which showcased significant innovations in compliance credits and transaction entities to enhance motivation for afforestation. This study creates a no-policy counterfactual scenario to analyze the woodland growth and ecosystem service trade-offs between 2013 and 2021. The results demonstrate that the woodland grew faster after this policy, with a growth rate 1.78 times higher than that from 2013 to 2017. The areas of woodland growth with the policy are mainly located on the edges of cropland and woodland. The increased woodland primarily originates from cropland conversion, and compared to the no-policy scenario, these growing woodlands have gentler slopes and lower altitudes. After the policy's enforcement, there were more increases in carbon storage, soil retention, and habitat quality. And ecosystem services showed a more optimizing trend in the direction of synergy at grid and town scales. We also find that larger spatial scales exhibit synergies and less accurately represent trade-off/synergistic change trends. The ecosystem services bundle consisting of carbon stocks, soil conservation and habitat quality showed a significant increase. This study reveals woodland growth and trade-offs among ecosystem services after the implementation of CFCMT policy, offering valuable insights for future afforestation policy optimization and promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]