China claims to be holding the greenest Olympics. So why has it built a ski

On Jan 29, 2022

But there’s just one problem — it was built in the middle of a nature reserve.

According to satellite images and official maps analyzed by CNN, the ski center tears through the former core area of Songshan National Nature Reserve, a park founded in 1985 to protect its dense forests, alpine meadows and rich biodiversity.

By the time Beijing won the bid for the 2022 Winter Games in 2015, the boundaries of the reserve had been redrawn to exclude the area where the ski field is now built. The new boundaries cover a larger total area, but critics say that’s unlikely to compensate for the loss of wildlife habitat and damage to the site’s delicate ecosystem from building the venue.

This apparent conflict with Beijing’s green narrative comes amid mounting questions about the environmental cost of the Games. Given the city’s arid climate, it will rely entirely on artificial snow — which experts warn would be a drain on energy and water resources.

And such environmental concerns won’t end with the Olympics. As the Chinese government looks to turn Yanqing into an international skiing hotspot and build more ski slopes, conservationists fear it could cause further damage to the local ecology.

The nature reserve

For decades, Songshan National Nature Reserve provided a sanctuary to many protected animal and plant species, including the golden eagle and rare orchids.

Under Chinese law, nobody is allowed to enter the reserve’s core area, except for scientific research with government approval. And a 2007 planning document obtained by CNN made it clear that development within the core area at Songshan was forbidden.

So when Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, conservationists and nature enthusiasts were shocked to find that the proposed alpine ski site fell exactly within the reserve’s core area on the Xiao Haituo mountain, the second highest peak of Beijing.

A photo of the Xiao Haituo Mountain in 2014, before it was turned into the alpine ski venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The discovery sparked an outcry on social media, with many internet users questioning why the Olympics venue had to be built inside a nature reserve. Censors soon moved in, deleting viral posts that drew hundreds of thousands of clicks, but that only further fueled the anger.

As pressure mounted, Zhang Suzhi, then executive deputy head of Yanqing county, told state newspaper the Beijing Daily in 2015 that the boundaries of the Songshan National Nature Reserve had been redrawn, and the Winter Olympic venues did not fall inside the reserve.

That appears to be what Chinese organizers told the International Olympic Committee, too. In its evaluation report of Beijing’s bid for the 2022 Olympics in June 2015, the IOC said the proposed ski area would be “adjacent” to the reserve.

But it noted that the proposed site is “part of the same mountain ecosystem” as the reserve, adding: “Ski resort development in this area would therefore require substantial ecological studies and mitigation measures to limit environmental impact.”

According to Zhang, the Yanqing official, the revised borders expanded the total area of the nature reserve by 31% and added more types of vegetation.

“After the adjustment, the nature reserve is richer in biological resources, more complete in ecosystem, stronger in water…

China claims to be holding the greenest Olympics. So why has it built a ski

The nature reserve

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