"Elephant run away" can promote environmental education
Recently, a group of Asian elephants walked out of the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Yunnan Province and rushed northward into the suburbs of Kunming, more than 500 kilometers away.
Under the attention of the public, this group of Asian elephants became "net celebrities."
When watching videos about the elephant herd, people cannot help asking: Is the elephant running away a tragedy or a comedy?
Many people think that the elephant's departure is a comedy.
Indeed, after this group of elephants walked out of the reserve, the various videos taken by drones and surveillance cameras in urban and rural communities were full of fun: They wandered the narrow county streets, turned on the taps to drink water by themselves, and rolled them directly from the truck. He walked with corn and other foods, and was drunk from eating fermented grains, and lay down to sleep in the wild.
Some people think that the elephant’s departure is a tragedy.
Those who hold this view believe that elephants walked out of their habitats because locals cut down many primitive tropical rainforests and planted a large number of economic forests such as rubber forests and tea forests, which destroyed plant diversity and reduced their food sources. The elephant had to leave in order to find food.
Which of the two statements is right and wrong?
First of all, it is certain that the local ecological environment in Yunnan is generally good.
At present, the actual area of nature reserves in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture has increased from 3.6 million mu to 6.228 million mu.
The area of the nature reserve has expanded significantly, and it is not allowed to destroy natural forests and replant economic forests in the reserve-this is an illegal act and will be prosecuted.
The substantial improvement of the ecological environment can also be seen from the changes in the number of elephant populations.
Statistics show that the number of wild Asian elephants that have lived in Xishuangbanna for a long time has grown from more than 170 in the 1980s to about 300 at present.
If the habitat environment really continues to deteriorate, will there be more and more elephant populations?
Secondly, the elephant's departure is indeed related to the lack of food, and it involves a serious issue of "human and elephant fighting for land". It is not a light-hearted comedy.
The increasing population of Asian elephants is closely related to the continuous protection and migration of villages over the years.
Plants like zongye reeds and sugarcane grasses that elephants like to grow mainly grow in low valleys and secondary forests with less dense forests, but their yields are not high in dense forests.
As the forests in the reserve become denser and denser, the Asian elephant population is expanding. When elephants don’t have enough food, they will choose to forage in secondary forests more outside.
In fact, it is not uncommon for elephants to run away.
Previously, Asian elephants intruded into residential areas near the reserve, causing social property losses and even casualties. The local government has established an Asian elephant monitoring and early warning system to notify residents to avoid wild elephants. It also explored the construction of food source bases to attract elephants to forage, which greatly reduced the record of "causing accidents" by Asian elephants.
From a rational point of view, the elephant's departure is actually not a simple comedy or tragedy, but an environmental drama that requires humans to "play" with the elephant herd with a positive attitude.
This is an important opportunity for ecological civilization scientific research and popular science education.
Wild elephants bathe, play, forage, and rest under the lens, which not only provides scholars with rare scientific research materials, but also provides a window for the public to entertain and educate.
Just as this group of elephants rushing to the north of Yunnan Province became "net celebrities", another group of elephants left the reserve and went south, broke into the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and stayed there.
The Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden itself is a comprehensive research institution affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The frequent departure of elephants from the reserve means that the coexistence of locals and elephants will become more and more normal.
Based on the in-depth study of the Asian elephant's habits, scientifically adopting policies and striving to realize the harmonious coexistence of humans and elephants is our goal, and it is also the most ideal state of ecological environmental protection.
She Huimin