China Green Development Association Power workers install an artificial nest of the Oriental White Stork on the tower
The biannual World Migratory Bird Day aims to help people understand the threats to migratory birds on a global scale and the importance of their ecology, highlighting the urgent need to protect migratory birds and their habitats. As is customary, this year's World Migratory Bird Day falls on the second Saturday of May and October, on 13 May and 14 October. UN News interviewed Yang Xiaohong, Director of the Research Office of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, to introduce the progress made in the conservation of migratory birds in China in recent years. Please listen to the report of special correspondent Du Jia.
Bird migration is a natural wonder. Migratory birds fly hundreds of kilometers in search of optimal ecological conditions and habitat to reproduce. Migration is a perilous journey involving a wide range of threats, often stemming from human activities.
Migratory birds fly long distances across many borders between different countries, and the threats to birds are different from country to country. At the same time, the wintering of migratory birds and the loss of stopover sites can have a huge impact on the bird's chances of survival. The protection of migratory birds therefore requires governments, NGOs and other stakeholders to collaborate, share knowledge and coordinate conservation efforts along the entire migration route.
Yang Xiaohong, Director of the Research Office of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation ("CDDC"), shared her experience in the conservation of migratory birds in China with UN News.
China Green Development Society Yang Xiaohong investigates golden eagles in Kalamali, Xinjiang.
Yang Xiaohong: "We mainly started working on the entire migration route of migratory birds in 2019. It is mainly the security of migratory bird migration on the route from East Asia to Australasia. In addition, through protected area work, the points along the migration route of the Great Bustard species from north to south are covered. Another species is the Oriental White Stork, and on this central line, the route that migrates along the coast, we have volunteers and guards all the migration points. ”
Mitigating "Bird Line Conflict"
Yang Xiaohong said that there are eight major migratory bird migration routes in the world, the middle one is from Russia in the north to the three eastern provinces of China, then to the Bohai Rim, and then south to Jiangxi, and then as far as Guangdong and Hong Kong. One of the priorities of the Green Development Council on this line is to reconcile the balance between the conservation of migratory birds and the supply of electricity needed for human economic development.
China Green Development Association In the early spring of 2022, the Oriental White Stork who returned to the area of Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province to make his home in the iron tower.
Yang Xiaohong: "For the economic development of a place, electricity and energy are the most basic support. A large number of places have appeared electric wires, poles, power grids. This dense facility in the air has a certain impact on migratory birds, especially bird strikes on migratory bird migration routes. Because of the changing environment, the birds lack tall nesting trees, and these birds, especially the eastern white stork, have apparently and intelligently found this electric tower as their home. Including some raptors, they also went to the electric tower to settle down.
This is a contradiction with the power grid, because in the safety manual of the power grid, these will be called bird pests, that is, as long as there is a bird's nest, or it collides, it will be regarded as a safety hazard. Once present, it is cleared instantly. Not only power companies, but sometimes railways, trolleybuses, etc., it is easy to say that under the premise of ensuring production first, it must be to ensure production first, without taking into account birds.
Power workers at the China Green Development Association Migratory Bird Lifeline project site repair the bird's nest for white storks.
We are mainly trying to mitigate the so-called bird line conflict, we will find a balance between the power facility and the bird, whether the tower, power line or pole can become a place where the bird can live, or become its habitat. As for safety problems, we will use physical prevention or isolation, such as baffles, protective covers, protective covers, that is, all sensitive electrical components cannot be contaminated by bird droppings and cannot be interfered with by nest branches, because it will conduct electricity, and if the distance between phases becomes smaller, it will be powered off and tripped. So the sensitive power supply does some isolation for it.
In addition, it is to create some corresponding ecological environment nearby or make artificial nests for birds, that is, to use abandoned towers to guide birds over. It is hoped that in this dense grid situation, they can migrate, survive, and coexist. ”
China Green Development Association Liveline project for migratory birds in Qinghai.
Leave passages for bird migration in advance
The Green Development Association maintains communication with the power grids of all provinces and cities in China to share the scheme of coexistence of merchants and birds. Yang Xiaohong believes that the protection work after the completion of the project is important, and the preliminary planning of the project is even more indispensable.
Yang Xiaohong: "All major construction projects, including power projects, require environmental impact assessment. But the EIA initially ignored bird migration – leave a seat for it, a passage. This also includes the construction of airports, and airports are the same, many of which are built on migration corridors. Now on the migration channel, a large number of birds collide with the plane during the annual migratory bird migration season, either interfering with the flight of the aircraft or directly colliding with the line. Because especially for young birds, it is inexperienced, and it is easy to happen in foggy or windy weather.
Planning this link is a big flaw, so now everyone has been pushing this, hoping that it can change - the environmental impact assessment to add this kind of clause on biodiversity, that is, to clearly consider especially sensitive biodiversity ecological protection. If we add these to it, we avoided it early in the planning, and we would not have done it as we do now. ”
China Green Development Association Yang Xiaohong investigates bird resources in Tibet's Mount Everest National Nature Reserve.
Encourage public participation
In addition to promoting the improvement and implementation of relevant regulations such as the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, the China Green Development Council also encourages public participation in the protection of migratory birds through various publicity activities.
Yang Xiaohong: "We will rely on the workstations set up by the power department and our original protected areas to carry out interactive activities. When we carry out activities, we will absorb the local residents, or go directly to the local residents, because the ideal situation - what we want to do is patrol.
If a bird is found to be injured or needs to be treated during the patrol, contact the government department and the wildlife rescue station to establish a linkage relationship, so that volunteers and surrounding residents can join the whole rescue process. You can join the patrol, rescue or rescue, in fact, it integrates enterprises, government and private people, that is, our entire cycle chain, you can choose to join any link at any time, you can play a role.
The experience of all volunteers is superimposed, bringing in the strength of the individual, bringing in the experience, and then doing a linkage rescue with the government. In short, there is one goal: to ensure the safety of migratory bird migration routes and minimize its losses. ”
China Green Development Society This year's newborn white stork baby in the Bohai Rim region.
Free up ecological space
Yang Xiaohong particularly emphasized that human beings are increasingly occupying the earth's resources, squeezing the living space of other species. The health of other species is essential to the planet on which humans depend, and humans must live in harmony with other species by changing their lifestyles.
Yang Xiaohong: "From the perspective of earth evolution, birds themselves are a part of life on earth, even before humans appeared. Humans appeared millions of years ago, and from this evolutionary history, birds have long been the masters of the earth, and birds are an important link in the entire ecological chain or ecosystem.
From an ecological point of view, a species is often implicated in one or twenty species, twenty or thirty species, and it is interrelated. Whether you recognize this association or not, it must exist objectively. The various species are then intertwined into a secure ecological web. If the more species disappear on the ecological net, the more fragmented the web will become, and eventually humans will depend on the ecological network to survive. Therefore, the disappearance of birds is actually a threat to the ecological security of human beings themselves.
If humans release a larger ecological space, such as not digging coal, not destroying the surface, and then not blocking the river. The energy problem can be solved, so that our ecological space will be more, and correspondingly there will be more space for people and other creatures to coexist. So I think if we want to be optimistic, we have to make a new breakthrough in technology, rely on humans, rely on our own brains, or have the responsibility to solve this problem.
In addition to the mode of production, the entire lifestyle is changing accordingly, leaving more space for other species. For example, we used to consume a lot, including plastic bags. Change is actually reducing human interference with native nature and reducing encroachment on other species. This can be done, and it works. ”
The above is a report by Du Jia, a special correspondent for UN News.