With increasing human disturbance, the Earth is experiencing unprecedented change. Changing climate, decreasing biodiversity, uncontrolled pollution, and increasing natural disasters are negatively affecting the balance of ecosystems and compromising a sustainable human society. Ecological science plays an important role in combating global change and natural disasters, and provides rich knowledge for sustainability. For example, understanding ecosystem carbon cycles and dynamics, with a magnitude much more than anthropogenic emissions of carbon, will inform sound policies and measures to mitigate climate change. Taking China as an example, with 1/5 of global population living in China and an increasing rate of urbanization, harmonizing nature and human beings is critically important for developing a sustainable society. The objective of this symposium is to address how ecological principles and technologies, both theoretical and applicable, are used in China to combat global change and natural disasters and to fulfill a goal of sustainability. The expected speech topics include the ecological impacts and restoration of the catastrophic Sichuan 5/12 Earthquake in 2008, climate change impacts on Tibetan Plateau, land-use change during rapid urbanization, invasive species in China, and carbon monitoring systems in China. Given the uniqueness of ecosystems, climate, history, culture, and social development in China, and also given the relatively less knowledge published on China’s ecosystems, the symposium is expected to attract large, broad, and diverse audience including those who are conducing ecological research in China and who are interested in China’s ecosystems as part of the global system.