Building a paradise for wild animals on the roof of the world, the story of ecological protection here continues
Waterfowls dance their wings and play indulgently, groups of Tibetan wild donkeys pace leisurely, wild yaks lazily foraging, white horse chickens dexterously shuttle through the jungle... This is not a wild zoo, but Sanjiangyuan National Park, a harmony between man and nature The paradise of symbiosis is the most intuitive model of Qinghai's ecological civilization construction.
Produced by Deep Eye Studio
Written by: Our reporter Zhang Yun and Li He
Planning: Liu Li, Lin Lijun
In Qinghai in June, female Tibetan antelopes in Hoh Xil are starting a mysterious migration to lambing.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Gangcha County, Qinghai, the migratory and spawning spectacle of "half pool of clear water and half pool of fish" is also being staged.
In the State Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Utilization of Biological Resources in Yunnan, which is co-constructed by the province and ministry of Yunnan University, thousands of miles away, precious wild animal feces samples are waiting to be studied.
In early June, as the team leader, Zhang Zhigang, a researcher from Yunnan University, led the second Qinghai-Tibet Plateau comprehensive scientific investigation activity "Plateau Microbial Diversity Conservation and Sustainable Utilization" project team with more than 1,500 fresh Hoh Xil wild animal feces samples. Return journey.
"This is by far the largest and most abundant sample collection of Tibetan antelope and wild yak populations in the world," he said.
Zhang Zhigang expects that once the sample research conclusions are released, they will be a major result of the second Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition.
Qinghai, a province with an extremely fragile ecological environment and a very important ecological status, must undertake the mission of protecting the ecology on the one hand, and take care of the "pocket" of the people in underdeveloped areas on the one hand. Facing the "big ecological examination", how should Qinghai solve the problem?
The battle between justice and evil
Beginning in May 2021, the Tibetan antelope migration journey, known as one of the world's most spectacular three great ungulate migrations, will begin again.
On May 18, a reporter from the Science and Technology Daily traveled to the hinterland of Hoh Xil, looking for a way for Tibetan antelopes to migrate and lay their lambs, and captured the migration of several groups of Tibetan antelopes.
Hoh Xil in May is still an isolated world of ice and snow. Under the blue sky, there are dark clouds, raging winds, and ice and snow under the blue sky.
Near the Qinghai-Tibet Highway 40 kilometers away from the Wudaoliang Conservation Station, female Tibetan antelopes crossed the bridge culvert of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, looking for food while walking towards the "large delivery room."
According to the 2020 Qinghai Ecological Environment Bulletin, the number of Hoh Xil Tibetan antelopes has reached more than 70,000.
In addition, in the arms of Hoh Xil, there are also rare wild animals such as Tibetan yak, Tibetan wild donkey, brown bear, and Tibetan fox.
Today's harmonious ecological picture scroll has been exchanged for blood.
In the 1980s, driven by interests, criminals formed armed groups to hunt and kill rare wild animals such as Tibetan antelopes for profit.
In 1998, the number of Tibetan antelopes in Qinghai was less than 20,000.
From then on, justice began to compete with evil in the vast no-man’s land of Hoh Xil.
Sonam Dajie, then deputy secretary of the Zhiduo County Party Committee and secretary of the Western Working Committee, also died heroically in the fight against armed poachers.
In the past few decades, the unique ecosystem was destroyed by humans, and Qinghai suffered one after another "ecological catastrophe."
The birthplace of the Yellow River-Maduo County, Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, known as the "County of Thousand Lakes", once had more than 4,000 large and small lakes.
However, in 2004, more than 90% of the lakes dried up or even disappeared, and there was a dry-off between the Zhaling Lake and the Eling Lake...
The Przewalski's gazelle is an endangered species that only exists around Qinghai Lake, and it is also one of the most endangered species of ungulates in my country and the world.
In history, the number of Przewalski's gazelle has reached tens of thousands.
In the 1960s and 1970s, due to habitat loss and excessive hunting, the population of Przewalski's gazelle fell to less than 150, which was less than the number of giant pandas, and was once faced with an extinction crisis...
Over-hunting of wild animals, over-grazing, desertification of pastures, rodents, illegal exploitation... The fragile Sanjiangyuan, Qilian Mountains, Qinghai Lake ecological regions are crying.
Protection is under exploration
The pain of the environment has aroused the determination of Qinghai Province to protect the ecological environment.
Over the years, the five major ecological protection and construction projects including the second phase of the Three Rivers Source, the restoration of grazing land, the protection of wetlands, the treatment of black soil beaches, the prevention and control of sandy land, the protection of important water sources, and the management of nature reserves have been fully carried out.
Waterfowls dance their wings and play indulgently, groups of Tibetan wild donkeys pace leisurely, wild yaks lazily foraging, white horse chickens dexterously shuttle through the jungle... This is not a wild zoo, but Sanjiangyuan National Park, a harmony between man and nature The paradise of symbiosis is the most intuitive model of Qinghai's ecological civilization construction.
Previously, although a series of ecological protection measures were implemented in the Three River Source area, water conservancy problems belonged to the water conservancy department, scientific and technological problems belonged to the science and technology department, and environmental protection problems belonged to the environmental protection department... The disadvantages of "fragmentation" continue to be exposed.
Reform is imminent.
In April 2016, my country’s first national park system pilot project, the Three Rivers National Park system pilot project, was officially launched.
This pilot system will integrate the ecological environment of Sanjiangyuan, harmony between man and nature, and economic and social development. A management bureau will be established to exercise unified jurisdiction over the Sanjiangyuan National Park. The GDP assessment of the Sanjiangyuan area will be cancelled and an "ecological red line will be established." "Promulgated relevant policies and regulations to increase the intensity of integrated monitoring of the sky and the ground.
As there is no ready-made experience for system reform, Sanjiangyuan National Park is the first national park to "eat crabs" in my country.
In the past few years, Qilian Mountains and Qinghai Lake have set up national parks one after another, and Qinghai has taken up the banner of national park demonstration province construction.
Develop in the most effective protection of the ecologically sensitive areas in Qinghai. This is the development path that Qinghai has explored while crossing the river by feeling the stones.
This road is not smooth.
"Seeing the pastures degenerate into black soil beaches, grassland functions are gradually disappearing, and herders have land but no livestock, what should we do?" In an interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily, Zhao Xinquan, academic dean of Sanjiangyuan National Park, was still facing the difficulties of Sanjiangyuan. Still fresh in my memory.
How to do?
Scientific support is an effective way.
Therefore, he led his team to restore the degraded grassland in the Sanjiangyuan area at an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters, turning the black soil beach into a green grassland.
In more than 10 years, Zhao Xinquan’s team has developed 27 technologies for grass seed production and ecological restoration of degraded grasslands, and has produced 365.9 million kilograms of improved pasture seeds for the treatment of 2.67 million hectares of degraded grasslands in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and northern China, and 350,000 hectares of black soil beaches, natural grasslands. 1.1.2 million hectares were replanted and improved, and 7.33 million hectares were renewed in the grassland of returning grazing to grassland.
As far as possible, Qinghai has also resettled the aborigines in the core areas and buffer zones of the original nature reserves, and introduced a number of subsidies and incentive policies for grassland ecological protection.
After the implementation of the ecological immigration and grazing prohibition policies, some of the herdsmen in Sanjiangyuan laid down their grazing whips and mastered a skill through training; some stayed and became ecological managers in public welfare positions.
At the source of Sanjiangyuan, the ecological guardians wearing red armbands ride horses or drive motorcycles or walk through the Sanjiangyuan National Park every day, fulfilling their duty-ecological patrol.
Genga Cairang is an ordinary herder in Yuegai Town, Qumalai County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
After putting down the grazing whip, he became one of the ecological stewards of the Sanjiangyuan National Park. His daily task is to walk into the mountains and forests to protect the ecological resources of his hometown.
Since the beginning of the construction of the Sanjiangyuan National Park in 2016, there have been thousands of herders like Gengacai who have taken up the posts of ecological management and protection personnel.
The people at the source of the Three Rivers are proud to protect the natural resources on which they depend for survival.
In the Sanjiangyuan area alone, the grassland subsidy policy allocates more than 2 billion yuan each year.
In addition, there are 13 subsidies including free compulsory education fees and winter heating subsidies.
Harmony between man and nature
June is the annual migration season of Qinghai Lake Huangyu.
As a national secondary protected animal, Huang fish gather at the mouths of the major freshwater rivers around Qinghai Lake, go upstream in groups and return to Qinghai Lake to lay eggs.
The reporter saw in the Quanji River in Gangcha County, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. On the riverbed with shallow water flow and on the cascaded cement dam, tens of thousands of Huang fish were advancing and following, jumping upstream from the cement dam. migration.
Over the river and on the dam, there are many brown-headed gulls and common terns hovering and standing, they swoop down to the river from time to time to prey on yellow fish...
Huangyu, also known as naked carp, is a unique fish of Qinghai Lake, and it is also a core species of Qinghai Lake's vegetation ecology.
Without Huangyu, the lake would be flooded with algae, and migratory birds would lose important food.
Nowadays, the harmonious scene of "water-fish-bird" is hard to come by.
Qi Hongfang, a promotion researcher at Qinghai Lake Naked Carp Rescue Center, said that in the past, people built dams to meet the needs of agricultural irrigation, causing a large number of broodstocks to gather under the dams because they could not go upstream to spawn, and eventually stranded and died.
The gonad development of Huang fish needs the stimulation of water current, once the migratory length is shortened, it will directly reduce the success rate of Huang fish "passing on from generation to generation".
In order to protect the migration of Huangyu, since 2010, Qinghai Province has demolished the dams of the Shaliu River, Quanji River and Hargai River, and built and rebuilt 7 migration channels.
Qi Hongfang said that the 100-meter-long fishway is stepped, with a 30-centimeter-high step and a small pool at intervals of 1.6 meters for the fish to rest and buffer, "basically ensuring the smooth ascent of the fish."
"Huangyu is the foundation of Qinghai Lake's'water-fish-bird-grassland' ecosystem. It plays an important role in supporting the biological chain and is vital to the protection of regional biodiversity." Deputy Director of Gangcha County Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Science and Technology Bureau The director Cai Dan said that the construction of the fish crossing not only solved the problem of hindered migration of Qinghai Lake Huang fish, but also completely solved the contradiction of "fish farmers competing for water" for many years.
Protecting Huangyu means protecting the food chain and ecosystem of Qinghai Lake, which is of great significance to maintaining the biodiversity of Qinghai Lake.
According to data from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Huangyu resources have increased from 2,592 tons in 2001 to 100.4 tons in 2020, an increase of 38 times.
From 2015 to 2019, the total population of waterbirds in Qinghai Lake ranged from 250,000 to 370,000. The species of birds continued to refresh, and the biodiversity and species richness increased significantly. Qinghai Lake became the most reproductive and most populated migratory bird in China. One of the concentrated breeding grounds.
At the same time, the water area and water level of Qinghai Lake have been increasing for 15 consecutive years.
Monitoring shows that in 2020, the water area of Qinghai Lake will reach 4,588.81 square kilometers, an expansion of 137.36 square kilometers compared with 2015, and it has returned to the level of the 1960s.
On June 3, on the north side of 315 National Road, Hargai Town, Gangcha County, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, dozens of Przewalski's gazelle were leisurely foraging in the field.
Qinghai Province has taken effective measures to save Przewalski's gazelle. Since 2009, more than 500,000 meters of barbed wire has been removed from net fences.
Hargai police station policeman Maford told reporters that in order to protect the Przewalski's gazelle, the herdsmen took the initiative to reduce the height of the fence from the original 1.5 meters to 1.2 meters to facilitate the habitat and migration of the Przewalski's gazelle.
Difficulties and shortcomings are also the key to solving the problem
The beauty of the Thousand Lakes reappears at the source of the Three Rivers. The wetland area of Qinghai Province is 8.143 million hectares, ranking first in the country. The population of rare and endangered animals such as snow leopards, Tibetan antelopes, and Przewalski's gazelle has been increasing year by year. The number of Tibetan antelopes has recovered from less than 20,000 at the lowest level to about 70,000, and the number of snow leopards has risen to more than 1,800...
It can be said that in recent years, governments at all levels have paid unprecedented attention to the ecological environment of Qinghai, and the protection has achieved remarkable results.
"From the research and observation results of various protected areas and institutions, the number of wild animal populations in Qinghai is increasing, and the scope of wild animal activities is also expanding. For example, in the past, snow leopards were only observed in the local area of the source of the Three Rivers, but their activities have also been found in the Qilian Mountains. Scope and traces. The expansion of the scope of wildlife activities shows that the management and protection methods are effective.” said Ren Yong, director of the Natural Ecological Protection Division of the Qinghai Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment.
The areas with the most attractive landscapes are also important areas for ecological protection. Qinghai is actively exploring the boundaries of tourism and protection.
Ren Yong said that tourism and production operations are prohibited in the core area and buffer zone of the nature reserve, while some local townships and villages are located in the core area and buffer zone. This is the particularity of Qinghai Ecological Reserve.
Ren Yong emphasized that the local area hopes to promote economic development through tourism, but for protected area management agencies, "the red line of ecological protection is the bottom line."
Therefore, dealing with the relationship between protecting the ecological environment and improving people's livelihood has become a problem in nature reserves.
Not only that, the "Study on Major Issues in the Construction of a National Park Demonstration Province in Qinghai Province" shows that the current ecological protection of Qinghai is still faced with the lack of background data surveys of natural resources, difficulties in cracking systems and mechanisms, weak economic and social foundations, difficulty in multi-head planning, and the effects of climate change. For example, in the Three Rivers Source National Park, 80% of the black-soil degraded grassland and 60% of the desertified land in the park have not been fully controlled, and 38% of the natural grassland has not been restored to grassland. It is necessary to achieve ecological Protecting and repairing targets requires continuous effort.
In recent days, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during an inspection in Qinghai that to protect the ecological environment of Qinghai is the "big one in the country."
For Qinghai, this is a heavy responsibility and the direction of future efforts.
Opportunities and challenges coexist, and difficulties and shortcomings are also the key to solving the problem.
At present, Qinghai is exploring a way out in practice.