An alliance made up of four cities circling Taihu Lake is inaugurated in Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on May 16 in order to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. [Photo/WeChat account: huzhoufabu]

An alliance made up of four cities circling Taihu Lake was inaugurated in Huzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on May 16 in order to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Concerted efforts will be made by the four cities - Huzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and Changzhou - to strengthen biodiversity protection in the region.

The alliance's establishment comes as part of a series of activities staged by Huzhou to celebrate the 23rd International Day for Biological Diversity, which falls on May 22 every year.

On the same day, the Huzhou Municipal People's Government signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Foreign Cooperation and Exchange Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

The Huzhou Center for Biodiversity Conservation at the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment was also inaugurated in the city.

Huzhou has in recent years made great strides in biodiversity protection.

To date, 12 different types of biodiversity surveys have been carried out in Huzhou, during which more than 2,200 species of wild plants and 1,700 species of wild animals have been found.

In December last year, Huzhou became the world's first city to be conferred the title of International Cooperation Demonstration Zone of Ecological Civilization during the COP15, which was held in Montreal, Canada.