Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West By Richard B. Harris, George B. Schaller
Publisher: M.E. Sha.rpe 2007 | 341 Pages | ISBN: 076562057X | PDF | 5 MB
Publisher: M.E. Sha.rpe 2007 | 341 Pages | ISBN: 076562057X | PDF | 5 MB
When China opened its doors to foreign biologists around 1980, they found a huge, beautiful country with a gloriously rich variety of plants and animals in habitats ranging from rainforest to cold uplands. To initiate field studies of species and work on behalf of their conservation with local colleagues was intriguing, exciting, and challenging, especially when, as was soon noted, Chinese and Western perceptions about nature sometimes differ. I participated in a giant panda study at that time, and now, years later, I still collaborate on wildlife projects in the country.
Yet the decades of political turmoil leading up to the 1980s had left China’s wildlife populations decimated, and large tracts of habitat degraded; the few protected areas were moribund, and ecological research had almost ceased. As if to make up for lost time, various government departments established many protected areas, raising the number from about a dozen in 1980 to over 2,000, or 15 percent of the country, today. A core of well-trained Chinese field biologists now conducts surveys and studies. New Chinese nongovernmental conservation organizations actively promote environmental issues. A Wildlife Protection Law was passed in 1988. For the first time ever, many Chinese have the funds and freedom to visit forests and mountains, to become aware of the pleasures offered by the country’s natural heritage, with its beauty admired and valued for itself and not modified to human tastes. I have found China’s changes in action and attitude toward conservation during the past quarter-century illuminating and remarkable, a lesson to the world about what can be accomplished within a few years.
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