Progress of GIES Case Development in Changbai Mountain and Surround Area

WANG Zhenbo  LIU Chuang*

Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100101, China

Abstract: Since the Geographical Indications Environment & Sustainability (GIES) Initiative launched in 2021, the GIES technology was used for supporting environment protection and socie-economic development in Jilin Province of China. The GIES case development from 5 of Panshi City located at the Changbai Mountain area to 15 of 9 counties in Changbai Mt. and around area. These cases involve geographical indications and geographical specific products, including rice, Chinese cherry apples, fish, large corylus, Ganoderma lucidum, ginseng, mineral water, Schisandra Chinensis, black fungus, and Pinus Koraiensis nuts. The Changbai Mt. and surround area is a unique ecosystem in China and the worldwide. The area is designated as the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, a National Nature Reserve, and a National Natural Heritage Site. The 15 GIES cases demonstrate an integrated regional approach to conserving the ecological environments of high-quality geographical products and advancing sustainable development.

Keywords: Changbai Mountain; GIES; case group; brand influence; Jilin Province

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3974/geodp.2026.03.01

1 GIES Cases development in Panshi City of Jilin Province of China

Based on the open science principle and focused on the environment protection and sustainable development, scientists from the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR, CAS), led by Professor LIU Chuang launched the Decade Initiative on GIES (2021–2030) in 2021 (Liu, et al., 2021)^[1]. The Changbai Mt. and surround area was selected to be the demonstration area for the GIES case development. Professor LIU Chuang, FU Jingying, and colleagues conducted field research in Panshi City in 2020 and dialogue with local government officers, famers and private sectors. A common understanding how GIES technology could help Panshi high quality development was made and the Panshi GIES cases began in early 2021. 5 cases were identified in 2021 to 2022, they are: Panshi rice Lanjia Village on permanent basic farmland case^[2–4], Panshi Chinese cherry apple Baoshan Township low mountains and hills case^[5–7], Panshi fishing Qiantang case^[8–10], Panshi large corylus Futai low mountains and hills case^[11–13], and Panshi rice Qiantang case in permanent farmland^[14–16]. The two journals of the Global Change Research Data Publishing and Repository of the World Data System (WDS-GCdataPR) of the International Science Council (ISC), the Digital Journal of Global Change Data Repository and the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery, formally published the datasets, video and articles. (Figure 1). Information about GIES Panshi cases were also featured on the FAO website (Figure 2).

Figure 1  Panshi cases published at the Digital Journal of Global Change Data Repository (datasets and videos) and Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery (articles) (2021)

Figure 2  Group Photo of FAO Delegation in Lanjia Village, Panshi (24/09/2025) (© IGSNRR, CAS/TANG Peixin. Used with permission)

FAO reported about the Panshi cases on FAO website: “Local woman farmer representative Yujun Han shared how the GIES application benefits smallholder farmers, ‘After the GIES project, we established our own brand for cheery apples, and buyers now come directly to us. Our income has tripled’”[1]. The successful Panshi cases^[17,18] demonstrate how to balance keeping the environment beautiful and socio-economic sustainable development. Panshi cases attracted more interest to use GIES technology in most of the Changbai Mt. and surround area.

2 GIES Case Development from Panshi City Expanded to Changbai Mt. and Surround Area

February 2024, the Agreement on Framework of Deepening Cooperation between the Governments of Jilin Province and Beijing Municipality was signed. In earlier of 2019, the Agreement on Building a New Growth Driver and Achieving High-Quality Development between Jilin Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences was signed. Based on the two agreements, the GIES technology has been recognized to be an accelerator for high quality development of Jilin Province of China, particularly in the Changbai Mt. and surround area. The region covers 114,406.44 km² with a population of 9.4247 million in 2024.

After the GIES case development in Pansh City of Jilin City (Prefecture), as the phase II, 8 more counties (cities, districts) launched the projects on GIES case development. These countries (cities, districts) are: Jiaohe City of Jilin City (Prefecture), Wangqing County and Helong City of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Fushong County and Hunjiang District of Baishan City (Prefecture), Ji’an City, Liuhe County and Huinan County of Tonghua City (Prefecure) (Figure 3). Professor WANG Zhenbo led the phase II action, which was supported by the Division of Market Management of Jilin Province of China.

By end of 2025, the WDS-GCdataPR had formally published 15 GIES cases covering the Changbai Mt. and surround area (Table 1). These cases cover 10 special agriculture products, including rice, Chinese cherry apples, fish, large corylus, Ganoderma lucidum, ginseng, mineral water, Schisandra chinensis, black fungus, and Pinus Koraiensis nuts.

Figure 3  Distribution map of the GIES cases in Changbai Mt. and surround area (by Dr. SHI Ruixiang, JIANG Zhaocai)

3 Team Work of GIES Case Development in Changbai Mt. and Surround Area

Environmental protection and sustainable development require multi-stakeholders work together across diverse fields and collaboration among these parties. Brand building for the GIES case group in the Changbai Mt. and surround area therefore brings together scientists from research institutes, professors from universities, officers from local governments, private sectors from enterprises, communities of societies, civil societies, and consumer communities. Number of partners for each of the cases is statistics at the Table 2, Figure 4 summarizes the composition of the principal teams involved in each case. The parties perform distinct but connected roles. Their specific functions, coordination model, and influence will be discussed separately.

Table 1  List of the GIES cases in Changbai Mt. and surround area

In addition, WDS-GCdataPR together with its two journals, the Digital Journal of Global Change Data Repository and the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery, participate throughout the review, publication, and dissemination of every case.

4 GIES Technology Supporting Value-Chain Adding by Brand Influence

WDS-GCdataPR at IGSNRR, CAS takes the responsibility to make sure each of the datasets, articles, videos and ground station information safety, accuracy, intellectual right protection and ethical compliance by peer review procedure. Then they are resisted in DOI, WDS-GCdataPR and CSTR systems, which will protect the intellectual property right of the products and their authors before publishing (Table 1). Building on this foundation, WDS-GCdataPR then focused on its services on dissemination. The methods and ways of dissemination include establishing permanent web sets at the WDS-GCdataPR official online platform for each cases, datasets, videos, and articles; building near-real-time GIES ground stations for retrieval origin of the product and its environment; organizing scientific forums; promoting the GIES case products and their practices at major domestic and international fairs (including the Beijing China International Fair for Trade in Services

Table 2  Team composition of the GIES cases in the Changbai Mt. and surround area

(CIFTIS), the FAO’s global exhibition From Seeds to Foods, etc.); and showcasing local traditional culture—for example, by working together with the Panshi government for the Winter Fishing Cultural Festival, and introducing the product from Panshi Qiantang (Thousands Reservoirs) fishing case to Beijing consumer community. These activities will benefit farmers increasing income, benefit consumers getting healthy products and benefit environment being kept beautiful.

5 Summary  

In February 2023, the quality was recognized to be a key driver of prosperous international trade, industrial development, and improved well-being by the China national development strategy. The Changbai Mt. constitute a distinctive geographical region and a unique ecosystem in China and worldwide. The area is designated as the Changbaishan Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, a National Nature Reserve, and a National Natural Heritage Site. The Changbai Mt. and surround area possess an exceptional geographical environment and distinctive high-quality products. On the basis of scientific investigations, we conclude that may more unique, rare, valuable, and high-quality geographical products remain to be developed and promoted in this area. Examples, such as native Amur grapes (Vitis amurensis), sika deer, and the product lines derived from them, which are uncommon in the market yet closely connected with people’s livelihoods. The cases introduced to date demonstrate an integrated regional approach to conserving the ecological environments of high-quality geographical products and advancing sustainable development. They also show how the principles of open science and innovation technology could accelerate regional Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and matching the Four Betters (Better Production, Better Nutrition, Better Environment and Better Life, and Living No One Behind) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Acknowledgements

The principal investigators of each GIES cases development made great contributions to the project, their credits should be recorded. They are: Professors FU Jingying, LIU Chuang, DAI Junhu, SONG Xianfang, LU Hongwei, and ZHU Wenbin; Associate Professors WANG Hong, LI Danfeng, and QI Wei of IGSNRR, CAS; Professors CHEN Shengbo, BIAN Jianmin, and WANG Jianguo and Associate Professor YE Yinghui of Jilin University; Associate Professor ZHAO Ling of Jilin Agricultural University; and Associate Professor WANG Ping of Northeast Normal University.

We appreciate the government officers of Panshi City, without their strong supports and leadership, the GIES cases in Panshi city would not possible success. Specific thanks to Mr. YU Zhiqun, Ms. WANG Pingping, Mr. QI Wu, Ms. YAO Liping.

Peer review is one of keys to make the datasets, articles, videos of each GIES cases safety, accuracy, intellectual right protection and ethical compliance. The professional experts involved the peer reviews procedures are Professor and Academician FU Bojie of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor and Academician TONG Qingxi of the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor HE Changchui of Peking University, Professor ZHOU Shangyi of Beijing Normal University, Professor ZHANG Wei of Liaoning Normal University, Ms. ZHANG Songmei, Deputy Director of the Big Data Development Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Associate Professor LIU Xiaolong of Jilin Agricultural University, Mr. CHANG Guocun, Chief Engineer and Senior Engineer of the Jilin Provincial Geological Environment Monitoring Station, Professor TAN Minghong of IGSNRR, CAS, Associate Professor XU Peilei of the Institute of Special Animal and Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Professor DAI Xin, Director of the Agricultural Information Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Mr. CHENG Jingen, President of China Association for International Agricultural Exchange; Professor XING Nan of Jilin University of Finance and Economics; Professor HE Shujin, Deputy Director of the Academic Journal Center, IGSNRR, CAS; Associate Professor SHI Ruixiang, Associate Chief Editor of Digital Journal of Global Change Data Repository and Ms. JIANG Zhaocai, Editor of Editorial Office of Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery.

Special thanks to Professor GE Quansheng, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery, President of the Geographical Society of China (GSC) and former Director General of IGSNRR, CAS for his calligraphic inscription for the Panshi fishing case. His inscription has become a spiritual symbol for the people of Panshi over the past five consecutive years in their efforts to promote the winter fishing cultural festival.

We thank the Physical and Chemical Analysis Laboratory of IGSNRR, CAS for providing scientific analysis of the environmental factors associated with geographical products. We thank Professor ZHU Weihong and Associate Professor WANG Jingzhi of Yanbian University and Dr. WANG Shu of IGSNRR, CAS for their support and efforts to the case development. We thank Professor ZHANG Guoyou, Vice President of GSC, Professor WANG Dai, Executive Secretary-General of GSC, Ms. LI Chenyan, Head of Science Communication and ZHU Yunqiang, Head of the Standards Working Group of GSC. We thank Tianjin Shuzhi Huayun Technology Co., Ltd. and Jilin Institute of GF Remote Sensing Application Co., Ltd. for supporting the construction of GIES information stations. Finally, we thank Mr. LI Yanfeng for designing the cover image of the special issue.

Particularly, many thanks to the Jilin Provincial Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Office) for its great support and guidance in project implementation. We also thank the government officers of Fusong County, Liuhe County, Huinan County, Hunjiang District, Jiaohe City, Helong City, Tonghua County, and Wangqing County for their guidance, supporting and cooperation for the GIES case development.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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