UTILIZATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAND MOUNTAINS IN CHINA

Key words: 
• islands in China /
• island mountains /
• mountain utilization /
• sustainable development

Abstract: The island mountain utilization is a kind of mountain utilization. Although the islands cover little area, they can be used as the base of marine development. The sustainable development of island mountains is of significance to marine development. There are more than 6500 islands (including the South China Sea Islets) in China, and most of them are continental islands which are the extension of continental mountains extent towards sea. For this reason, there are many hills but few mountains, the area of hills makes up more than two thirds of the whole land area. In order to keep ecological balance of islands, the utilization of island hills and mountains should take exploitation of forests as the main to conserve water source and water soil, and forests become an important factor in keeping ecological balance and sustainable development of islands. At the same time we should make good use of forests through setting up forest nature protecting area and forest parks and developing forest tourism.