Posted on December, 13 2002

Yueyang City, China – China’s first ever nation-wide bird-watching contest was recently held in the East Dongting Lake National Nature Reserve to raise awareness on protecting the habitats of rare and endangered bird in the area. East Dongting Lake National Nature Reserve, a 190,000-hectare wetland reserve in China’s second largest freshwater lake, is one of China’s 21 Ramsar Sites — wetlands of international importance designated by the intergovernmental Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. As China's second biggest lake, the area is Asia’s most important wintering spot for cranes, storks, swans, pelicans, and ducks, including the highly endangered Siberian white crane and white stork. The event consisted of an election, a petition signing, and bicycle campaign, in which over 200 people participated. Bird enthusiasts from across the country, media, many of the nation’s most well known ornithologists, and Yueyang city’s top government and business representatives took part in the contest. The event was sponsored by WWF, local businesses and the Yueyang city government, along with support from the State Forestry Administration and the Hunan Forestry Department. Six of the twelve teams — from Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, and ‘Union’ (a team from various places in China) — were organized through WWF China’s website. Other teams came from as far away as the Xinjiang and Yunnan provinces. Also participating were members of Hong Kong and Taipei bird-watching associations, and representatives from international lens and telescope companies, who sponsored some of the teams. Each team had 30 hours to spot as many bird species as possible within the reserve. “I was impressed by the number of birds you could see relatively close-up, and in large flocks,” said Zhang Yi, a member of the WWF’s Beijing team, who spotted 81 species of birds during the contest. “I’ve never seen so many different species in one place.” Amongst the bird species her team saw were Oriental White Storks, Eurasian Spoonbills, Black-eared Kites (similar to eagles), Lesser White-fronted Geese, Pied King Fishers, and Northern Shovelers (a duck species). The winning team, the Leica-sponsored Green Earth Team, spotted 104 types of birds. But despite the impressive variety of wintering birds seen, experts say the number of birds inhabiting Dongting has declined dramatically over the past few decades. “Much of the land here has recently been converted from rice paddies to vegetable fields,” said Lei Gang, East Dongting National Nature Reserve’s manager. “This increases fragmentation of the birds’ habitat, and also increases human outdoor activity in winter when migrating birds stopover. Formerly the rice fields, which are abandoned in wintertime, offered a good habitat for migrating birds.” Convincing locals to stop the conversion of rice fields to more profitable vegetable fields requires offering compensation for losses. “To protect the area, we need to do something that combines the welfare of people with conservation. Ecotourism such as bird-watching can be a good solution as it is both a good means of raising awareness and earning money for the local community and conservation,” said Jiang Yong, East Dongting Nature Reserve’s Vice Director. “If there were no people living here, conservation could be very pure. But people have inhabited this area for over 1,000 years. There are now 5.2 million people living around Dongting Lake, all of whom need to earn a living.” Renowned ornithologist He Fenqi, who helped research China’s definitive field guide to birds and was one of the contest’s judges, concurs. “China has a lot of people. To preserve nature a balance has to be achieved,” he said. “This contest is a good example for the people of Yueyang of how birds can attract tourism, which can bring benefit to the local economy.” In addition to helping to cultivate ecotourism and China’s burgeoning bird-watching community, WWF believes that the event brought various stakeholders together. “WWF provided seed money for the event, about 10 per cent of the total cost,” said Liang Haitang, WWF’s Yangtze Program Officer. “With this initial funding, nature reserve staff were able to lobby the local government and non-traditional partners to get involved. A real estate company provided the most funding.” Another non-traditional stakeholder present at the event was the owner of a local paper mill, one of the chief polluting industries in the area, who announced his company’s goal of acquiring new technology and planting trees to reduce their impact on the environment. For further information: Zhang Yifei Communications Manager for the Freshwater and Marine Programme, WWF China Tel.: +8610 731 5110087 E-mail: yfzhang@wwfchina.org