At 14 o'clock on August 31, over the Wild Elephant Valley, the scorching sun scorched the earth and the air was rolling in a heat wave, Chen Zhixin, the head of the Wild Elephant Valley Comprehensive Maintenance Work Area in the Pu'er Infrastructure Section of China Railway Kunming Bureau Group Co., Ltd., was leading his workers to carry out daily inspections of the Asian elephant protective fence along the China-Laos Railway.
Asian elephants are national first-class key protected wild animals, with a sparse population and only operate in the southern part of Yunnan Province and the border areas adjacent to Myanmar and Laos in China. Pu'er, Xishuangbanna and other areas through which the China-Laos Railway passes are areas frequented by Asian elephants.
How to achieve harmonious coexistence between humans and wild elephants
This is for railway builders
It is a subject that requires continuous learning
Soon, they found one
Follow the laws of nature to the solution
In order to protect the Asian elephant population, as early as the beginning of the construction of the China-Laos Railway, railway builders determined the Asian elephant protection area through satellite image recognition, data collection and other methods, and finalized the direction of the China-Laos Railway line. At the same time, in the section of the railway line near the wild elephant activity area, the builders also specially built bridges, culverts and other wild elephant passages and special protective fences to ensure the safety of railway transportation while reducing the disturbance to the wild Asian elephant population.
"This is a special protective fence, soft and rigid, designed for wild Asian elephants." Chen Zhixin said that conventional protective fences are easy to be damaged by elephants, so they adopted an innovative measure specifically to protect Asian elephants: steel rope fence protective fences. The impact level of this fence can resist the impact speed of an adult Asian elephant at a speed of 24 kilometers per hour, which not only greatly reduces the damage caused by impact, but also protects the safety of wild Asian elephants.
"In addition, there is an invisible fence along the China-Laos Route to protect the Asian elephant population 24 hours a day." Chen Zhixin said that the railway department has set up sound barriers on both sides of the roadbed and bridges to reduce or reduce the vibration and noise generated by train operation to disturb Asian elephants. These sound barriers, intelligent security video systems along the railway, patrol personnel booths, Xishuangbanna Asian elephant early warning platform and many other measures build a three-dimensional, full-time safety guardrail.
Along the China-Laos Railway, where Asian elephants often operate, this layer of flexible guardrails is distributed in Mengyang, Shangyong and other areas. An important responsibility of Chen Zhixin and his co-workers in their daily inspections is to maintain these special protective facilities and equipment along the more than 20 kilometers of road in the work area.
"In areas where elephant herds operate, such as tropical rainforests, mountain ravines and bamboo forests, mosquito bites and poisonous snakes are common, and our task is to maintain the railway infrastructure for public works, electricity and power supply, and ensure that the protective net in these areas is safe and secure." Chen Zhixin's team has a total of 19 people, and the average age of all of them is less than 24 years old.
Despite the harsh environment, everyone's determination to build the China-Laos Railway into a green ecological road of "human-elephant harmony" has never waned.
After the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the Wild Elephant Valley Comprehensive Maintenance Zone will inspect the protective fences and passages of wild elephants along the line every month. Speaking of Asian elephants, 21-year-old lineman Cai Jiayu is very fond of these natural spirits, and his first "chance encounter" with Asian elephants made him feel surprised and nervous.
"We had just finished working on the 'sunroof' and the car encountered an elephant on the way back, and although it was more than 10 meters away, we did not dare to honk our horn for fear that it would attack us." Cai Jiayu recalled. At about 14 o'clock on July 16, Cai Jiayu and his co-workers finished the line equipment inspection work between Puwen Station and Yexianggu Station, and when the engineering vehicle they took was driving along the rural road on the side of the line to the mountainous area near Dahuangba Village, Dadugang Township, Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, about 10 wild elephants foraging in the woods blocked their way.
Watching the "giant beast" slowly walk out of the woods, wagging its ears and tail, and come to his eyes to "feast", the hearts of Cai Jiayu and his co-workers also mentioned their throats. "At that time, the elephant herd crossed the road from the right side in front of us and moved towards the China-Laos Railway line on the left, and some wild elephants showed that they were trying to hit the guardrail, but the leading elephants seemed to have found the passage, and they moved along the nearest China-Laos Railway Wild Elephant Passage to the other side of the line, and the whole process lasted about half an hour." Cai Jiayu said. Chen Zhixin, who was in charge of leading the team on the day, said that this area is a perennial activity area for wild Asian elephants, which is why the China-Laos Railway has set up a total of 19 wild elephant passages in the area.
People do not live up to the green mountain, and the green mountain will not live up to the people. Since the opening of the China-Laos Railway, the railway and the Asian elephant population have always maintained a state of harmonious symbiosis.
Under the all-round protection of the railway people
Visible special fences and
Invisible three-dimensional full-time "guardrail"
Injected into the China-Laos Railway
The connotation of ecological civilization
This green "Great Passage of Gold"
It is full of life
Contribution: People's Railway Newspaper Co., Ltd. Yunnan Reporter Station (Kunming Bureau Group Company Media Center)
Text: Zhou Tao, Wu Meng
Images: Zhou Tao, Wu Meng, Yao Wei, He Lupeng
Editor: Han Han
Reviewer: Gao Shan