Abstract: Wetland biodiversity is an important part of global terrestrial ecosystem biodiversity. As the second largest freshwater lake in China, Dongting Lake plays an extremely important role in protecting wetland biodiversity and maintaining regional ecological security. At the beginning of the 21st century, the ecological environment of Dongting Lake was severely damaged, and the biodiversity was reduced, which restricted the sustainable development of economy and society. In order to conserve biological diversity and solve the "dispute between people and nature" in the Dongting Lake area, the East Dongting Lake Nature Reserve launched the project "Wetland Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use in China", funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in 1999. Due to the lack of the holistic and networked management and sustainability considerations of Dongting Lake at ecosystem level, the GEF project "Securing Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use in China's Dongting Lake Protected Areas" was approved and came into being in 2014. As the first GEF funded project implemented and completed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in China, this project has achieved remarkable results in cross-sectoral coordination and collaboration, the establishment of wetland co-management demonstration models, the strengthening of institutional management capabilities, and the improvement of the mainstreaming of wetland conservation. The experience of project management lies in timely adjustment of project output activities and improvement of financial management capabilities to meet the needs of project implementation and policy environment. By analyzing the problems and shortcomings, suggestions were put forward that in the future implementation of international projects, emphasis should be placed on strengthening top-level design, shortening the interval between design and implementation, and timely summarizing and evaluating the effectiveness and shortcomings of management and implementation practices. The impact of risk factors on sustainable development and mitigation measures should be analyzed. This paper hopes to provide useful reference for other wetlands type protected areas to carry out biodiversity conservation and management practices.