Looking at the photos posted by Makino in the circle of friends, the first impression is "raw and fierce". Rock climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering, skiing, flat belt, diving, skydiving, gliding, outdoor sports are all kinds of fun, this alone is enough to make people envious. He travels extensively as a non-professional player and takes lunch breaks almost all year round. Swinging an ice axe in the Alps the day before, the next day they were ready to set off for the Norwegian fjords to snorkel with killer whales. Summer comes, rock climbing, diving, paragliding, and in winter, ice climbing and skiing become a major task.
In 2018, Makino left the Banff China team he had set up to join the "Guard the Wilderness" volunteer linkage platform. The CSO Chief Strategy Officer was raised, and he jokingly called the "Chief Shoveler Officer". Speaking of the reason, Gein led the team to the front line of snow leopard survey projects such as Tianshan and Sanjiangyuan every time, and the most he did was to crawl on the edge of the rock to collect the feces and hair of the "big cats".
From outdoor circle jumping to wild protection circle, from outdoor culture promoter to snow leopard conservation volunteer, the functions and identity attributes seem to be different, but what Makino wants to do has not changed.
He said that outdoor sports contain the way people communicate with nature, and the work on the wilderness front line allows him to see a broader meaning of "outdoor", the most fundamental love is still nature, want to put themselves in nature very naked.
Makino and his companions climb ice in the Rocky Mountains of Banff, Canada. This article is provided by respondents
The Paper: From the outdoor circle to the wild protection circle, how has your life trajectory and workplace trajectory changed?
Makino: When I was a child, I was a very thin child, and I was not in good health until I was twelve. After the middle school was exposed to outdoor sports, the body slowly improved, starting with climbing, hiking, and camping, and gradually developed to reloaded hiking, such as 7 or 10 days of no man's land routes. After that, we will further contact outdoor sports in the fields of rock climbing, mountaineering, diving, and skydiving. The process can be said to be guided by nature, step by step, through continuous learning and training, master more skills, but also become more confident and determined. Many people think that the places I go and the things I do are dangerous, but the fact is that outdoor sports have taught me that fear stems from the unknown, and it is because of frequent wild expeditions that I have become more rigorous and planned, and now I bring these attitudes back to life.
My career and life are closely related to outdoor sports. In my junior year and senior year, I volunteered at WWF and participated in the project of transforming the Old River Valley Forest Farm into an ecological protection project. After graduating, I worked in the outdoor industry for several years, and my main job was brand operations and marketing management. Later in this career experience, by analyzing foreign trends and studying the domestic market environment, I realized that "outdoor" is only a trend for Chinese consumers, not a way of life. Many people buy equipment but do not go to the field, and it turns out that a storm jacket and a pair of hiking shoes cannot be worn for ten years, so this part of the consumer cannot be as willing to upgrade outdoor equipment as foreign consumers. At that time, I felt that I should do something that would actually help the development of outdoor culture, so I chose to start a business and participate in the Banff Mountain Film Festival and the International Ocean Film Festival China Tour.
After that, I thought that I could take some more energy to do public welfare, so in early 2018, I participated in the snow leopard protection volunteer action jointly launched by "Guarding the Wilderness" and "Wilderness Xinjiang" as a volunteer, and followed Xi Rui and Ya Ya, the first batch of nature conservation activists who transformed from outdoor people, to work in the mountains, collect and deploy cameras, do animal trace surveys and data records, and thus become a member of the "Guardian Wilderness" without warning.
While photographing the color-changing sand lizard in the Gobi of Xinjiang, the little guy jumped on Makino's arm and looked into the distance with great emotion.
The Paper: Your current public identity is the chief shoveling officer of "Guarding the Wilderness", how is the word explained? What are the specific functions?
Makino: Species monitoring (trace surveys, sample collection, community visits) at the project site is always one of the most important tasks. Specifically, it is to find and collect animal feces, arrange infrared cameras through traces, and learn about the coexistence of locals and nature through visiting the indigenous people of the community, so the name "shoveling officer" was given. To say the meaning, I hope to serve the wilderness myself and at the same time lead more people to act with me.
There are seven core members of the "Guarding the Wilderness" team, and XiRui and Yaya are responsible for the core content of the project site and cooperation with various NGOs in Xinjiang. My base camp is in Beijing, responsible for professional training, the formation of front-line volunteer teams and the docking of local resources in Beijing, and there are several small partners in Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou, who are engaged in volunteer system management, derivatives development and transactional work of different projects.
Qinghai Sanjiangyuan is the world's most abundant area of cats, and the wilderness guard team found the footprints that the leopard had just left at a ditch in the early morning, so they hiked into the mountains to explore.
The Paper: Can you briefly tell us how you raised funds, built teams, and operated wildlife observation and conservation projects? What activities are already under way?
Makino: "Guarding the Wilderness" is a platform for sharing volunteer services, serving various NGO institutions in China that do nature conservation (pollution prevention, garbage sorting and picking, species protection), most of the funds come from project applications from foundations in the industry, public fundraising, and a small part from some public fundraising projects initiated by ourselves. It is the upgrade of the "Wilderness Public School" project initiated by "Wilderness Xinjiang", and the co-sponsors of "Wilderness Xinjiang", Xi Rui and Ya Ya, participated in the project monitored by Ma Ming, a teacher of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2012, saw the accelerated changes in the environment, and wanted to do something possible and useful within their capabilities, so they established a civil welfare protection community with the Xinjiang Species Survey and Protection Project as the starting point. In their continuous learning and contact with the mainland public welfare environmental protection agencies, they learned about the possibility of triggering the camera to record China's wild snow leopards, so they began to conduct trace investigations based on the Urumqi River, and in the next 3 years, they gradually expanded the research area and endangered species, forming a team of animal chase volunteers in the direction of umbrella protection of the western alpine ecology.
By 2018, the "Wilderness Xinjiang" volunteer team has accumulated a lot of achievements, and also has a source of funds for foundations and targeted enterprises. The "Guardian Wilderness" upgraded at this time and launched the "Cloud Guardian Volunteer Companion Cultivation Program". The purpose is mainly to allow more ordinary people who like nature and want to protect nature and dedicate their time and energy to nature protection, but they can't get started. It is positioned as a platform for volunteer mobilization, training management and growth, which can allow volunteers from all walks of life and skills to serve the public welfare protection action, and also bring attention outside the circle. We feel that this direction is worth doing and necessary to do.
Makino and Xi Rui arranged the trigger camera at the East Tianshan project site, and when they arrived at the layout point, they couldn't wait to see the animal images recorded by the camera.
In March 2018, Guardian Wilderness was officially launched, and in less than a year, hundreds of volunteers were recruited, including 40 core volunteers. In terms of periods, we have been conducting more than 10 snow leopard surveys and are now preparing for a new round of work in the spring. In addition, we have also participated in a number of local conservation and research projects hosted by shanshui nature conservation center, spoon-billed sandpiper in China, wild China, WWF World Wide Fund for Nature, China Feline Conservation Alliance and other institutions, as well as large-scale ecological protection activities such as the Sanjiangyuan Nature Observation Festival and the International Otter Conference, and the system has been established faster than expected. However, there is still a certain distance from the goal of cloud guardianship.
In addition to the snow leopard, the platform has also launched a series of survey and conservation projects targeting species in alpine ecosystems. Interested friends can pay attention to the "Guardian of the Wilderness" public account, the amount of information is relatively large, but also welcome everyone to join our "Wilderness Cloud Guardian" program.
A snow leopard inside the project site is in a "planing pit," their signature act of covering up their excrement.
The Paper: When doing animal trace surveys in the wild, how do volunteers usually spend their 24 hours? Tell me a few things that impressed you, right?
Makino: Doing research is a very interesting but slightly difficult job, we need to go deep into some research data gaps and explore on foot, look for clues about animals, and then record them in real time. If important traces are encountered, it is also necessary to make a preliminary judgment and analysis on the spot to decide the next action. After the camp is built at night, the work of copying and processing the data usually begins immediately.
One of the more impressive events occurred at the project site of the Tianshan Mountains. I took a few volunteers to the new area to set up a trigger camera, and that day I saw a large herd of red deer and goats, the latter of which is the main prey of the snow leopard, and even the call of the snow leopard can be heard. We climbed all the way along the animal path, brain-medicating the possible route choices of snow leopards. The road on the mountain became steeper and steeper, the snow was very thick, and we did not bring mountaineering protection equipment, so we could only quickly lay two points in the heavy snow and retreat. After returning to the camp, hungry and cold, and the gas tank was almost burned out, and there was not enough water to drink, the group urgently decided to collect some dead branches on the nearby mountain, make a cremated snow, dry clothes, warm hands and feet, and then fall asleep. Three months later, the two cameras recorded a new snow leopard, and I named her "Fury."
Another time was when I went into a ravine with Captain Ciri, where poachers used to be, and that was a very important source of data for us. Along the way, all the trigger cameras in the layout were stolen. We walked all the way to the deepest spring in the ditch, but we didn't find a single one, and we stared at each other for half a day. We're not only missing a few cameras that people donated, but also image data from snow leopards this season. We speculate about who did this, and we are particularly worried about the safety of the leopards.
For the first time, Makino, who recorded the snow leopard, played cosplay excitedly, and at the same time, he could see the comparison between the size of the snow leopard and the person.
The Paper: I heard that in addition to animal trace surveys, you will also conduct sample line surveys of alpine ecosystems, in what form will the collected data be transformed and presented to the public?
Makino: This part of the information and data will be submitted to the industry director single scientific research institution for further analysis, for example, the snow leopard project we have the snow leopard China protection network. In 2018, the Snow Leopard China Conservation Network released China's first snow leopard report, telling the public about the current status of the protection of the Snow Leopard in China, where it is, how many known areas are known, how many blank areas are still there, and what work we still need to do. We ourselves will also hold offline sharing activities open to the public from time to time, and will disclose the progress of the project and the results of the stage through the WeChat public accounts of various institutions.
The Paper: What knowledge and skill reserves need to be added to frequent field work? What do you need to be a volunteer?
Makino: The first is to learn to respect nature and how to minimize the negative impact on nature at work and in life. The second is to learn to protect yourself, and it is necessary to supplement basic wilderness survival skills, including motor skills and first aid skills. In addition, it is necessary to make full preparations for the places to be visited and do preliminary research on the species that may be seen.
My own way of storing knowledge is generally to start from background knowledge, ask senior teachers in related fields for advice, and supplement their information base by reading books and finding information. It's important to remind yourself to keep getting back to nature and learning by doing.
Our requirements for volunteers are not complicated. It is enough to have a skill, a certain amount of energy, and a determination to participate in wildlife protection. The Cloud Guardian Program now proposed by Guardian Wilderness advocates volunteers to use their leisure time and strengths under the existing social attributes, such as writing tweets, editing, designing posters, and participating in wildlife conservation projects. Remote work is fine, there is no need to travel to the project site. From our point of view, it is also a way of "going out of the circle" to the public and accumulating.
The summer flower season in Inner Mongolia is the best flying season, and Makino and his companions practice paragliding in Keqi.
The Paper: Do you have anything to add to the popularization and promotion of the domestic people's awareness of ecological protection?
Makino: I believe that love nature is human nature, something in the bones, like DNA source code. It's just that urban life has gradually alienated us from the natural world, both geographically and psychologically. So before thinking about how to solve this problem, the first thing that should be considered is how to get people back to a lifestyle of living with nature.
I believe that through a variety of outdoor activities, people will enjoy the fun and excitement of nature, so it is logical to want to protect this beauty. The same is true of my own mentality of joining the Better Blue Deep Blue Diver Marine Conservation Alliance, a shift that is a natural choice driven by the heart, rather than standing on a moral footing and demanding what you must accomplish.
In addition, forests, deserts, oceans, and wilderness are out of reach for urban populations. Therefore, when promoting the concept of ecological protection, it is necessary to make everyone realize that urban ecosystems are all around us. We can start from the city and the ecosystem around the city to understand and learn, pay attention to the flowers, trees, birds and animals around us, and participate in the improvement of the urban ecosystem.
Agencies are now advocating for public participation in ecological surveys. From the perspective of the institution, the staff doing surveys and scientific research is limited, and the area to be investigated is so large and the species are so large, so it is very necessary for the public to participate in becoming citizen scientists through self-learning and assisting the institution in the investigation and protection of the natural ecology. I think it's a very interesting thing, nature-loving friends can get professional knowledge and skills through citizen scientist programs, while at the same time making their hobbies to the extreme, making life rich and meaningful.
Finally, I hope that you can learn and participate with me, become a citizen scientist who guards the wilderness, and get your own happiness while guarding your homeland.