Many nature reserves have been established for conserving forests throughout the world. Creating a buffer zone around a core area is often suggested

but determining the width of the buffer zone is a challenge. The soil seed bank is an important indicator for the restoration capacity of a degraded vegetation ecosystem. This could be useful for designing nature reserves. According to the restoration potential and similarity index of seed banks of some sites with different distances from the core zone

the minimum width of a buffer zone can be determined. Different samples

outside of the core zone

with a different distance from the boundary of the core zone were chosen. Analysis of variance was used to analyze species

seedling and seed banks among different samples

the Sorensen-s similarity index was calculated. Based on a field survey

the buffer zone of the open-forest nature reserve in Hunshandak Sandland

China has been designed. The minimum width of buffer zone should be 300 m in lowland

600 m in shifting sandy dunes

and 1 000~1 200 m in fixed and semi-fixed sandy dunes. Seed bank approaches will be useful for determining the buffer zone width of the forest nature reserve and can be applied and extended to the other nature reserves which aim at preserving endangered species/ecosystems and their habitats.