China will launch the largest-scale operation to protect Tibetan antelopes

China will launch the largest-scale operation to protect Tibetan antelopes Xinhuanet Starting from May this year, the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in western China and the national-level Qiangtang in Tibet...

Xinhuanet

Starting from May this year, the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in western China and the national-level Qiangtang in Tibet have The nature reserve, Qinghai Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve and Xinjiang Bazhou Altun Mountain National Nature Reserve will work together to launch the country's largest operation to protect Tibetan antelopes. This is also the first time that the four major reserves have jointly launched a mountain patrol operation to combat poaching.

Tibetan antelope inhabits desert meadows and plateau grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 4,600 meters to 6,000 meters. It is a national first-level protected animal in China. This wild animal, known as the Elf of the Tibetan Plateau, was destructively hunted in the 1980s because its fur was expensive in the international market. It was not until the Chinese government established four major protected areas in the Tibetan antelope's main habitat at the beginning of this century that the number of Tibetan antelopes gradually recovered.

"This joint anti-poaching campaign is likely to last from 1 to 3 months, and is expected to become an annual practice." Caida, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve Administration, said on September 7, 2010. The four major protected areas held a ten-year review of Tibetan antelope protection and a symposium on China's four nature reserves in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. At the meeting, the four major protected areas signed an agreement to jointly protect Tibetan antelopes. The upcoming large-scale anti-poaching patrol operation is one of the results of this meeting.

It is understood that if this joint operation is fixed every year, it will become the most extensive and largest conservation operation since China established a protected area to protect Tibetan antelopes in the 1990s.

"The reserve has been protecting Tibetan antelopes for ten years, and poaching activities have been greatly curbed. However, some new problems have forced the four major protected areas to join forces," said Xire, director of the Forest Security Bureau of Tibet's Qiangtang National Nature Reserve.

Staff members of the Qiangtang National Nature Reserve said that under the attack of large-scale mountain patrol operations in the reserve, some poachers began to hire local herdsmen to carry out small-scale poaching activities of Tibetan antelopes at the junction of the four major reserves. This activity is relatively scattered and highly concealed.

Xire said: "The area of ​​the four major protected areas is too large. Due to various problems such as administrative affiliation, manpower, and funding, poachers have been given some opportunities."

According to reports, the total area of ​​the four major protected areas where Tibetan antelopes mainly roam is nearly 550,000 square kilometers, an area close to that of France. Tibetan antelopes migrate back and forth across such a vast plateau, leaving a vacuum in the combined areas of the four major protected areas.

"In the past, it took us 1 to 3 months to conduct a mountain patrol. Although we had the intention to cooperate with neighboring protected areas, because there was no system, communication was cumbersome and laborious. We often lost clues when tracking poachers to the boundaries of the protected area." As an old patrol captain with more than ten years of protection experience, Luo Yanhai, director of the Forest Security Bureau of the Hoh Xil Management Bureau, feels this deeply.

Caida said that according to the joint protection agreement signed last year, the four protected areas will establish a joint protection cooperation rotation system to strengthen mutual visits, exchanges and learning; joint mountain patrols, habitat protection, scientific research, personnel exchanges, information exchange, collaborative case handling, ecological education and other activities will be carried out every year; a liaison system will be established to regularly inform each other of the work status of the protected area every quarter, and inform other protected areas of major activities, case clues and other important information carried out in the protected area at any time.

Despite the difficulties, China's actions to protect Tibetan antelopes have achieved great results. According to statistics, since 1990, China's forest police have uncovered more than 100 Tibetan antelope poaching cases, confiscated more than 17,000 Tibetan antelope skins, more than 1,100 kilograms of Tibetan antelope cashmere, more than 300 firearms, 150,000 rounds of bullets, 153 vehicles of various types, and captured nearly 3,000 suspects of Tibetan antelope poaching.

At present, the number of Tibetan antelopes in Zaoqiangtang National Nature Reserve, the main habitat of Tibetan antelopes, has recovered from more than 60,000 before protection to about 120,000. The number of Tibetan antelopes in Hoh Xil Nature Reserve has also recovered from less than 20,000 to more than 70,000. Today, along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, the graceful figures of these plateau elves can be seen from time to time.

In addition to protecting Tibetan antelopes, the four major protected areas will also collaborate on regional mineral resource protection. Xire said that the four major protected areas including Qiangtang and Hoh Xil are not only rich in wild animal and plant resources, but also very rich in mineral resources. According to the relevant laws and regulations of China's national nature reserves, the mining of mineral resources in these areas is strictly prohibited.

"Future cooperation will be multifaceted, and we will definitely protect the pure land of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," Caida said.