Situated in the north-west of Yunnan Province, the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas are made up of eight geographical clusters, covering 1.7 million hectares. This site, named after Asia’s three big rivers, the Jinsha river (Yangtze), Lancang river (Mekong) and Nujiang river (Salween), includes Lijiang area, Diqing Prefecture and Nujiang Prefecture in administration, and holds the spectacular natural landscapes, including snow mountains, glaciers, gorges, lakes, forests, grasslands and wetlands, and other outstanding scenic landforms such as alpine karst and the alpine Danxia terrains. In 2003, the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas were inscribed in the World Heritage List by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. This paper integrates the natural, cultural and intangible cultural heritage resources. There are some issues in earthquakes, mudflow, landslide, ecological crisis, greenhouse effect, climate warming, glacier melting, water and soil erosion, hydropower development, mining, road construction, tourism development, etc. The paper presents relevant conservation strategies to the heritage site, including establishment and implementation of scientific management mechanism, zoning protection, natural disaster monitoring system, ecotourism planning, etc.
