To say that the largest animal on land today is the elephant. Last year, a group of wild Asian elephants from Xishuangbanna went on a "journey north", triggering a national craze for elephant viewing.
Today is World Elephant Day, how are the Asian elephants living in Xishuangbanna doing? Not long ago, we went to Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, and looked at these precious "big friends".
Asian elephant. Ursa/Photo
With the continuous increase in awareness of the protection of wild animals, the population of wild Asian elephants has grown from more than 100 at the end of the last century to about 300 at the end of 2019. Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, is one of the "Noah's Ark Guardians asian elephants" project site of the Beijing Entrepreneurs Environmental Protection Foundation (SEE Foundation), one of the main habitats of the Asian elephant population on the mainland, and the destination of our visit.
More than 1,000 acres of elephant "canteen" opened its doors to "open for business"
In order to alleviate the human-elephant conflict caused by the overlap of habitat and human settlement environment of Asian elephants, since 2016, the SEE Noah's Ark Guardian Asian Elephant Project has carried out multi-party cooperation in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, with the support of donors such as Alibaba Public Welfare Baby Caring Merchants, adopted the conservation model of community participation, promoted the conservation of biodiversity with Asian elephants as the flagship species, promoted natural restoration within the ecosystem, and mainly carried out habitat restoration, community livelihood substitution, ecosystem monitoring, There are four aspects of publicity and education on nature conservation.
Farmland has been turned into "elephant canteens", and full elephants lie directly in the fields and sleep.
In Menghai County, we learned that this year's 1,043 acres of Asian elephant food source land has been completed. According to Yuan Shengdong, an engineer at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the project monitoring party said: "At present, the food source plants in the food source supply area are growing well, and the survival rate is higher than 90%, which can provide a long-term food source, water source and good habitat environment for Asian elephants, so as to attract a large number of wild Asian elephants to move in the base of the food source supply area, reduce the frequency of entering the local people's living and production areas because of food search, and alleviate the human-elephant conflicts caused by Asian elephants going out." ”
Plantains grown in elephant "canteens". Plantains have a short growth cycle and can grow multiple times to meet the large food needs of the elephant herd.
In addition to foodborne plants, nitrate ponds are also vital to Asian elephants. Asian elephants need to obtain mineral elements that are scarce in food through nitra ponds to replenish their metabolic losses and maintain physiological balance in the body, but natural nitro ponds are scarce in the natural environment.
Therefore, the project combined the factors necessary for the survival of wild animals such as habitat environment, food source, water source, etc., and adopted a near-natural approach, and established a total of 9 artificial nitrate ponds for Asian elephants in Meng'a Town.
Infrared rays detect Asian elephants appearing next to artificial nitrate ponds.
During the visit, we also "encountered" Asian elephant droppings and elephant footprints. The feces of Asian elephants can be used as a data support for the study and protection of Asian elephants, as well as to provide nutrients and environment for seed germination and soil microbial growth, and even be used by insects as a habitat. By observing and analyzing the footprints of Asian elephants along the way, we can also better understand the direction and route of the elephant population migration, supporting in-depth study of the habitat of this population.
Using science and technology to protect the "harmony of people and elephants"
Habitat construction is accompanied by the Asian Elephant Monitoring and Early Warning System. SEE Noah's Ark Guardian Asian Elephant Project adopts and promotes an acoustic and visual alarm system that integrates infrared cameras for long-term duty, AI automatic identification, and system remote control alarms. The system can timely broadcast the early warning broadcast of Asian elephant activities to the designated range of people within the specified time.
Sound and light warning equipment used to inform village residents of the presence of Asian elephants. Wu Xuewen/Photo
This liaison system not only helps villagers who work in the field and are inconvenient to use communication equipment to receive messages in a timely manner, but also receives early warnings in time through sound and light early warning systems placed in various parts of the field to avoid human-elephant encounters and lead to casualties.
The man who "chases" the elephant
In addition to the power of science and technology, for the local villagers to send timely warning information, there is such a group of people - wild elephant monitors, also known as "elephant forecasters". It's a very hard and dangerous job. Paying attention to the elephant's every move has become almost the whole of the monitor's life, and "being chased by the elephant" is also a daily occurrence.
Zhang Delin is one of the wild elephant monitors.
Zhang Delin.
Before 2019, his 30 acres of farmland became an "elephant canteen" almost every year. Cash crops such as sugar cane, corn, and rice become the food rations for elephants when they reach maturity.
With the support of the Menghai County Forestry and Grassland Bureau and the Alxa SEE Southwest Project Center, Zhang Delin became a wild elephant monitor. He and his partners are responsible for finding the latest traces of wild elephant activities for local villagers, determining the number of wild elephants (groups) in the jurisdiction area, and releasing elephant herd information through relevant channels to provide timely and accurate early warning information for residents and ensure that residents do not encounter elephant herds when they go out.
Wild elephant monitors observe elephants. Photo / Zhou Gangfeng Courtesy photo / Menghai County Forestry and Grassland Bureau
The wild elephant that others avoided was Zhang Delin and the monitors' most familiar friend. They gave each wild elephant a nickname and cherished them. They ran after the wild elephant, and they were also chased by the wild elephant, trying to find the answer between man and the elephant.
Let people, elephants, and forests rebuild the old good
In the past 50 years, in order to develop the economy, humans have begun to cultivate large quantities of cash crops such as tea, rubber, coffee, etc., which has improved the living standards of local residents, but also led to a reduction in the area of tropical rainforests; At the same time, the density of trees in the forest increases, the understory space is squeezed, and the vegetation that Asian elephants like to eat is reduced, which seriously destroys the biodiversity.
Losing their original food source, Asian elephants were forced to gradually move to human fields to forage for food, and they highly coincided with human activities in time and space. Seeing the unwelcoming attitude and intimidation of human beings towards them, Asian elephants lost their former gentleness and began to respond to humans with violent disturbances.
Therefore, early warning monitoring is only a passive measure to reduce human-elephant conflict, returning economic forests to natural forests, solving problems such as shrinking, fragmentation and fragmentation of elephant habitats, and restoring the tropical rainforests on which Asian elephants depend for their survival, so that they have a "home to stay", is the fundamental solution to protect Asian elephants. The habitat restoration work of the SEE Asian Elephant Project follows this line of thinking.
On the basis of preserving the Asian elephant-loving plants in the habitat, the SEE Noah's Ark Guardian Asian Elephant Project adopts the means of positive inter-cutting, thinning the more densely forested areas, cleaning up the invasive plants in the habitat, and planting a variety of native plants that Asian elephants like to eat, such as rice leaf reeds, plantains, trees, bamboo, etc., in order to improve the quality of Asian elephant habitats, enrich food sources, and systematically carry out all-round monitoring of Asian elephants and other wild animal activities, land use, meteorology, phenology and other comprehensive monitoring in the surrounding areas Scientific monitoring data is used to evaluate the effectiveness of habitat optimization and gradually restore tropical rainforests.
SEE Noah's Ark Protects habitat optimization of asian elephant project - tending to thinning.
During the visit, we also learned that with the support of Alibaba Charity Foundation and Taobao Shopping, the project will also complete the restoration and optimization of 595 acres of Asian elephant habitat and corridors this year, through which Asian elephants can freely travel between sub-protected areas and promote gene exchange between populations.
Asian elephant conservation is a huge and complex undertaking, and we still have a long way to go to alleviate human-elephant conflict, re-establish human-elephant boundaries, and explore the friendly and interdependent relationship between human society and ecosystems.
Forests are the common home of man and elephant,
May the "great friend" of mankind be treated with tenderness,
May humanity live in harmony with Asian elephants.
Thank you to all the partners who participated in this visit
(In no particular order)
Sichuan Observation
Caixin Media
Bilibili Public Welfare
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