Home to several great rivers, the western part of China has a variety of ecosystems and abundant biodiversity, making it essential for maintaining both domestic and global ecological security. The region is also rich in mineral reserves that make a huge contribution to national economic development.

Currently environmental protection in this region faces several urgent problems. Some areas have a very fragile ecology that faces a severe threat, such as desertification in the northwestern provinces, soil erosion in the loess plateau, and increasingly frequent debris flows in southwestern provinces.

Large parts of this region are frontier areas with various ethnic groups. These areas are relatively undeveloped and cannot invest much in protecting the environment. For example, in 2008 Yunnan province invested 1.48 billion yuan ($225 million), or 1 percent of its revenue, on environmental protection; at the same time Jiangsu province invested 9.518 billion yuan for the same purpose, which accounted for 2.93 percent of its revenue. Lack of funds has become a tight bottleneck for environmental protection in these regions.