Male, member of the Communist Party of China. After graduating from Xinshao No. 1 Middle School, Hunan, in 1982, he obtained his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Hunan Normal University, the Kunming Institute of Botany (CAS) and Gifu University, Japan. He works on botany, biodiversity, biological germplasm resources, biocultural diversity, national security studies (ecological security) and ecological civilization, and pioneered the theory and methods of modern ethnobotany; his work has been reported by People's Daily, Guangming Daily, CCTV and the Xuexi Qiangguo platform.

He became a professor at the Kunming Institute of Botany in 1997, chief scientist in 1999 and doctoral supervisor in 2003, and has been a second-grade professor at Minzu University of China since 2010. He receives the State Council special government allowance and has been recognized as an expert with outstanding contributions, leader of an innovation team and leading talent by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, a technological innovation leader of Yunnan Province and a high-level talent of Guizhou universities.

He is Director of the Key Laboratory of Ecological Environment in Minority Areas (National Ethnic Affairs Commission) and Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Ethnomedicine (Ministry of Education).

He serves on the Agriculture and Forestry Division of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Education, the second Expert Committee on Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Expert Advisory Committee on Wild Plant Protection of the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, and the Expert Committee on the National Botanical Garden System.

He has served as chief engineer of the national major scientific project “Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Southwest China”, council member of the International Society of Ethnobiology, member of the Ministry of Education's teaching committee for plant production and assistant to the Director of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Agriculture.

He also chairs the Ethnobotany Committee of the China Wild Plant Conservation Association and holds vice-chair or council positions in the Ethnobotany Branch and other committees of the Botanical Society of China, the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, the Ecological Society of China, the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association and other bodies, as well as in natural-medicine and Chinese-medicine anthropology organizations and the education committee of the Society of Ethnobotanists.

He is an associate editor of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine and Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, an editorial board member of Archives of Pharmacal Research, Frontiers in Nutrition, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems and Diversity, and of four Chinese core journals including Biodiversity Science and Chinese Journal of Modern Chinese Medicine.

He has received 23 provincial/ministerial or higher awards and honours, including two first prizes, four second prizes and two international awards; he is one of only two Chinese scholars to receive the Harshberger Medal of the Society of Ethnobotanists.

His other honours include Outstanding Graduate Supervisor and the Outstanding Educator Award of Minzu University of China and Outstanding Scientist of the Ecological Society of China; his popular-science books have appeared on national best-seller lists.

He has published 448 papers, including 295 indexed in SCI and 7 in SSCI, and five articles in Guangming Daily and People's Daily; written or edited 25 books; holds 19 invention patents; described 32 new species; and led 63 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology and international partners.

He has supervised (or co-supervised) 136 graduate students, including 36 doctoral students, and two postdoctoral fellows (one from Mongolia). His students have received National Scholarships for Doctoral Students, Baosteel Scholarships, Beijing Outstanding Graduate titles and provincial outstanding thesis awards, and his undergraduate students have won national and Beijing awards in entrepreneurship and life-science innovation competitions.