On March 4, 2025, Ambassador Wang Xiaolong was invited to the 50th anniversary of the Pūkorokoro Miranda Naturalists Trust. The event was jointly attended by Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, Governor-General of New Zealand, representatives from the Pūkorokoro Shorebird Centre and local governments, HE Carl Worker and HE Clare Fearnley, former New Zealand Ambassadors to China, Consuls-General of Japan and South Korea in Auckland, the Secretariat of the East Asian Australasian Flyway (EAAF), and a delegation from Beijing Forestry University.

In their speeches, Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro, Keith Woodley, Manager of the Pūkorokoro Shorebird Centre, and Phil Battley, Associate Professor of Massey University and New Zealand’s leading shorebird researcher, reviewed the Centre’s conservation efforts and achievements supported by the Trust. They spoke positively of the critical roles played by China, Japan, and South Korea as members of the EAAF and highly commended China’s significant contributions to protecting migratory bird habitats and flyways. They emphasized that migratory bird conservation is vital to the future of our planet and serves as an exemplary model of international cooperation to address shared global challenges, deserving continued promotion and persistence.

The event also featured a Pōwhiri, and the guests toured the Robert Findlay Wildlife Reserve to observe resident shorebirds.

The EAAF, spanning Oceania, Asia, and North America, hosts the highest number and diversity of migratory birds globally. China’s Dandong Yalu Jiang estuary wetland, for instance, is a critical stopover habitat for bar-tailed godwits en route from New Zealand to breeding grounds in Alaska, USA.

Migratory bird cooperation is a highlight of China-New Zealand relations. In June 2024, during Premier Li Qiang’s visit to New Zealand, the two countries signed a Memorandum of Arrangement on Cooperation to Promote the Exchange of Bird Banding Data for Migratory Shorebirds and Seabirds between China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration and New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, pledging to strengthen collaboration on migratory shorebirds and habitat conservation. The Trust has established a sister-site partnership with the Yalu Jiang National Nature Reserve in Dandong, China, and the two sides have been fostering long-term personnel exchanges and joint initiatives.