Posted on May, 31 1999

Beijing, China: The proverb "an elephant never forgets" is not quite true in the Yunnan Province of southwest China. In tropical rain forests near the Chinese border with Myanmar, wild elephants saunter freely through farm fields and villages, unconcerned by the locals watching them. They appear to have forgotten that not so long ago these people would have shot them. To conservationists this counts as a success story, but the fact is that successes are outnumbered by sad tales of animals, plants and fossils being made extinct or stolen.

China is extremely rich in biodiversity, with an estimated 30,000 higher plant species  a tenth of the world's total; 250 gymnosperms, representing 30 per cent of the world's total, and more than 6,000 vertebrates. "This wealth of flora and fauna is under serious threat from pollution and ecological damage," says Liu Yongfan, deputy director of the Department of Wildlife Protection under the State Forestry Administration.

Some 4,000 species of angiosperms, 60 species of gymnosperms and more than 400 vertebrate species are considered to be on the verge of extinction. The main reason is that their natural habitats have been destroyed at a rate of two million hectares a year. But as the massive floods sweeping the Yangtze and Songhua rivers showed in the summer of 1998, nature is not the only casualty of ecological mismanagement. More than 4,000 people were drowned in the floods, which also caused large economic losses. The floods were largely attributed to years of deforestation in the catchment area. As a consequence, the government is now much clearer on the need for better environmental management in step with rather than under the heel of, economic development. Logging has been banned in vast areas of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, where there are hundreds of tributaries of the Yangtze system. Meanwhile, efforts are being made to preserve what is left. China now has 926 nature reserves covering 77 million hectares, or 7.64 per cent of its territory.

China also operates its own Biosphere Network which monitors conditions in 66 nature reserves. The country's aim is to continue developing an integrated network to protect the natural environment, wildlife and plants, and relics such as fossil sites and those of special geological interest.

"While preserving a number of representative and typical natural eco-systems with scientific research value, nature reserves should primarily be refuges for rare and endangered species," says Liu.

For example, the Honghe Marshland Nature Reserve covers 20,000 hectares in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province. It is the territory of the white stork and the rare wader as well as more than 20 other rare species, including the red-crested crane, lynx, leopards and swans. Surveys have found the reserve to be home to 160 bird species, 25 mammals and 1,000 plants.

Local government efforts have concentrated on protecting this primitive ecosystem, says Zhu Baoguang, the reserve manager. Residents of the neighbouring farms are not allowed in the the reserve and anyone causing damage is subject to punishment.

According to the State Forestry Administration, reserves such as Honghe are havens for endangered species and rare plants, including the Siberian tiger, the crested ibis and golden monkey.

To look after rare and endangered wild plants, there are more than 200 protected areas in China. Last year, a 90 hectare-reserve was set up for plants on the verge of extinction near Jinghong, the capital of Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Province. At an altitude of 570 metres, the Jinghong reserve is home to the European hornbeam, the Yunnan pellacalyx and the country's tallest tree, an 80-metre-high Shorea wangtiansuensis. Other rare species include Alsophila spinuiosa, the golden peony and dracaena, and the reserve can claim to be the most important plant reserve in China with its collection of 110 species.

But natural treasures are not only living things. Magnificent rare fossils have been unearthed, particularly in the northeast. At the end of 1998, China set up the 46.3-square-kilometre Beipiao Bird Fossils Nature Reserve. All the prime local fossil sites discovered in recent years are within the reserve, including the one with a dinosaur-bird believed to possess the earliest feathers. The fossil of the world's oldest flowering plant, said to be 145 million years old, is also found here. But reserves such as these, while applauded by preservation groups, government and environmental bodies, often disturb the way of life of local communities  many of them very poor. "We are beginning to doubt the wisdom of our initial idea of keeping people away from wilderness areas," says Yin Hong, deputy section chief in charge of nature reserve management at the Forestry Administration. "In the long term, we need to forge a partnership between the nature reserves and their surrounding villages."

Three years ago, the Forestry Administration and the Global Environment Facility launched a project to improve China's nature conservation by encouraging the involvement of local communities. The project will cost US$23.6 million over six years. Xiahuibian, a remote Hani community bordering the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve, is one of eight pilot villages in the programme. Wildlife is rather too well protected there, and animals are causing crop damage and attacking farm animals. To compensate villagers for their cooperation and understanding, the reserve authorities have invested in a hydro-power station and helped to improve farming methods and incomes. There has also been some compensation in cash.

"The idea of balancing community development and nature protection, which we call `co-management,' is the key to our future success in saving our country's biodiversity," says Yin Hong. (919 words)

*Wu Qi works for China Features in Beijing