Xiaohong Zhang spent nearly 30 years working with a range of government and non-government organisations. Much of her work is focused on biodiversity conservation and management across China while playing different roles as engineer, project officer, coordinator, manager and specialist in wetlands, environment, training, forestry areas.
Zhang holds a PhD in Environment Science from the University of Nanjing Normal and other interdisciplinary degrees or certificates for literature and language, forestry, and ecological training in China, Canada and the Netherlands.
She worked on secondment with Wetlands International-China in 2007 to provide technical inputs and has been working with Wetlands International since 2002. She participated in implementation and management of many projects funded by UNDP, UNEP, World Bank, EU, Asian Development Bank, KfW and such other bilateral and multilateral NGOs and enterprises. The projects she was involved in covered 23 provinces and autonomous regions in China. She has worked on peatlands conservation in Ruoergai Plateau for more than ten years and was associated to the peatlands inventory, degraded peatlands restoration, public awareness raising, capacity building, community livelihoods etc. Wetlands International’s efforts in Rueorgai Plateau have been well recognised by the national, regional and international communities as a case shown in different events and publications produced. Two national nature reserves in Ruoergai Plateau have been designated as Ramsar Sites. All the work helped Zhang establish wide relations with government, NGOs and academies.
Zhang continues to work as a project manager of Flyway Bottleneck Yellow Sea project led by Wetlands International and she will collaborate with government, organisations, communities and institutes to mobilise actions to safeguard migratory waterbird populations in Chinese Yellow Sea region of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.