On the occasion of the 55th World Earth Day, the volunteer forest chiefs of Danshan Primary School in Xiazhuang Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City, took action, carrying bird nests made of domestic waste, along the winding forest protection mountain road to the halfway point of the western foot of Laoshan Mountain, which is the residence of the Wildlife Conservation Association of Chengyang District, Qingdao.
On April 19, Xu Liqiang introduced ecological and environmental protection knowledge to the students of Danshan Primary School
With the help of Xu Liqiang, president of the Chengyang District Wildlife Conservation Association and an out-of-school counselor in Qingdao, primary school students hung their nests in the woods to provide a comfortable home for the birds. During the event, Xu Liqiang also introduced the national second-class protected wild plant Qingdao lily to the students.
Xu Liqiang is a resident of Shaoshan Community, Xiazhuang Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City. In 1995, 14-year-old Xu Liqiang participated in the "Keep Seagulls" action in Qingdao for the first time, and since then he has been associated with public welfare undertakings. In 2015, he took out 800,000 yuan of money from the sale of the wedding house for the cause of "wildlife protection", and was once regarded as a "loser" by his parents. From a person to a city, from a beam of light to a fire, from Xu Liqiang's establishment of the association to the present, he has brought together more than 5,000 volunteers with the concept of ecological protection.
For more than 20 years, Xu Liqiang has been committed to wildlife protection. In 2020, Xu Liqiang was selected as one of the 100 most beautiful ecological and environmental protection volunteers in "Beautiful China, I am an actor". He and his teammates have sheltered and rescued more than 2,700 wild animals and plants, made and hung more than 20,000 artificial bird nests at the western foot of Laoshan Mountain, Jiaozhou Bay Wetland and other areas, and provided a warm home for more than 1,500 wild birds to breed and inhabit every year. It took six years to restore 11 abandoned islands at the confluence of the Baisha River and Haihe River into more than 60 species and tens of thousands of migratory birds.
Xu Liqiang and volunteers release birds (photo provided by the interviewee)
"All of us are members of the global family, and we have the responsibility and obligation to work together to maintain the health and stability of our planet. On the occasion of Earth Day, we call on everyone to take action together to maintain the health and sustainability of Mother Earth through low-carbon travel and biodiversity protection." ”
On April 19, the reporter interviewed Xu Liqiang and listened to him talk about the hardships and joys of wildlife protection over the years.
Sow a green seed
Dazhong Daily: President Xu, what work have you and your team done over the years?
Xu Liqiang: As the most grassroots district and county-level protection unit in the country, what our association can do is first of all to be an active disseminator and practitioner of the concept of ecological civilization. On the one hand, we use the concept of ecological protection to combine our unique local mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grass resources to disseminate the concept of ecological civilization to the public, especially young people, in easy-to-understand language, and on the other hand, we give full play to our professional and regional expertise in protecting the environment to assist the government departments of Chengyang District to do some specific work on protection, including some ecological restoration work.
Dazhong Daily: What are the characteristics of Chengyang District in Qingdao City, where you are located, in terms of environmental protection?
Xu Liqiang: Chengyang District of Qingdao City has set up a volunteer forest chief model with public participation as the main body. We know that the forest chief system takes the party committee and the government as the main body and coordinates the protection of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, but the party committee and the government alone cannot protect all the resources, because environmental protection has the typical characteristics of many points, long lines and wide areas.
Taking Chengyang District as an example, it is a young urban area with a very fast urbanization process and a very large foreign population, which happens to have the forests at the western foot of Laoshan Mountain, a provincial nature reserve, the Baisha River, the Baisha River, the Ink River, the Xiangmao River, the Taoyuan River, the Hongjiang River, the Dagu River wetland, and a large area of the shoreline of Jiaozhou Bay. So many ecological resources not only lay a good ecological foundation for sustainable development, but also mean that the local party committee and government will bear huge ecological responsibilities, which is also in line with the overall direction of "protection in development and development in protection".
Xu Liqiang participated in environmental protection education activities (photo provided by the interviewee)
Dazhong Daily: How have you and your team strengthened the publicity and education of environmental protection over the years?
Xu Liqiang: In recent years, we have mainly taken young people as the main body to spread the concept of environmental protection, and every year we have entered campuses, enterprises, and communities to do about 100 popular science publicity, and released 100 legal popularization videos every year. We have filmed 115 episodes of Qingdao's "Life Weekly" series of videos, with a cumulative reading of more than 15 million.
We launched the Baisha River Basin Biodiversity Education Alliance, which has 15 primary and secondary schools and 1 kindergarten in which it has participated, and has radiated to 53 schools in the surrounding area. Through this alliance, we are working together to tell the story of the Mother River Basin and nature, spread the voice of nature, and sow a green seed in the hearts of young people.
Shoot the "pause button" for key projects
Dazhong Daily: April 22 this year is the 55th Earth Day, and the theme is "cherish the earth, live in harmony with nature". What do you mean by "harmony between man and nature"?
Xu Liqiang: I understand that "harmonious coexistence between man and nature" refers to respecting nature, protecting nature, and conforming to nature.
Reporter of Dazhong Daily: Have you encountered setbacks and challenges in environmental protection work over the years?
Xu Liqiang: People are flesh and blood, not steel, and when encountering tribulations, winds and waves, I have also complained and been discouraged, but I have never given up. This may have something to do with my personality, because I grew up in this mountain, and I should say that I love nature from the bottom of my heart.
We have also intervened to stop some acts that damage the environment, and the other party shouted "You are very arrogant" and threatened to retaliate. Over the years, departments at all levels have attached great importance to environmental protection, which has given us the confidence and backbone to fight against these behaviors, and we can wrestle with any behavior that destroys the environment and does not follow the laws of nature, and stop their behavior of destroying the environment.
With the continuous improvement of supporting laws, I said when I preached to young people, I not only give you the feeling of protecting the environment, but also give you the "weapon" to protect the environment. For example, the Wildlife Protection Law, the Forest Law, the Wetland Protection Law, etc., these are all our "weapons", and after we have these "weapons", when we go to carry out our work, we will feel justified.
Xu Liqiang and his teammates protect injured birds (photo courtesy of interviewee)
Dazhong Daily: Are you a representative of the Chengyang District People's Congress, or the head of the Chengyang District People's Congress Wildlife Protection Representative Workstation, what work have you done?
Xu Liqiang: Through the empowerment of the National People's Congress, we can better build consensus and promote the solution of urgent and difficult problems in the field of wildlife habitat protection.
For example, in the process of river management of the Baisha River in Chengyang District in 2023, the 60,000 square meters of native reeds in the river were not considered in the preliminary survey and planning, which is an important habitat and breeding ground for birds such as the "giant panda among birds" Aurora jay and the rare species crested grebe. Of course, river dredging projects are also important livelihood projects, and there is a conflict between the two.
Through the communication and coordination between the platform of the Protection Association and the platform of the National People's Congress, and with the strong support of the district party committee and the district government, we have done two rounds of program optimization and discussion, and the key projects under construction have been photographed "pause button". In the end, after soliciting opinions from many parties, the relevant parties optimized the construction plan to ensure both flood flow and protection, and retained 36,000 square meters of reeds, preserving the natural background of the mother river and maintaining biodiversity.
Seek development with "masters".
Dazhong Daily: Can you tell us about the efforts you have made to protect Qingdao lilies over the years?
Xu Liqiang: Qingdao lily is an endangered plant with high ecological, scientific and social value, and it is also a very high-quality germplasm resource of the lily family. Qingdao lily was supposed to be in nature's gene pool to maintain biodiversity, but in recent years, with illegal mining and digging, Qingdao lily was once endangered. Since 2015, we have bred 1,500 Qingdao lilies that have been protected, and 460 of them have been given to scientific research units for scientific research, and 300,000 have been cultivated and bred, and recently, we have organized volunteers to plant a total of 5,000 Qingdao lilies in the western foothills of Laoshan Mountain.
On April 19, Xu Liqiang introduced Qingdao Lily to the students
Dazhong Daily: In the long run, what is the value of protecting Qingdao lilies?
Xu Liqiang: With the resource of Qingdao lily, we can tell local stories well, and we can also use Qingdao lily to make bionic flowers, pattern clothing and other cultural and creative products, so as to tell the story of local wildlife while protecting, help rural revitalization and sustainable development, and benefit future generations.
Reporter of Dazhong Daily: In your opinion, how to promote the better development of the association?
Xu Liqiang: If there is something we can be proud of, it is that we have carried out science education with young people as the main body for more than ten years, and we have achieved some results. In the long term, there is a real shortage of human resources, especially those with a sense of innovation, in conservation and scientific use.
We plan for sustainable development by competing with the best of the best. For example, in the 2024 Yellow (Bohai) Sea Wetland and Waterbird Conservation Exchange Event held in early April, we invited experts and scholars from the "national team", the first thing is to let them know what we are doing, and the second is to hope that they can put forward valuable opinions, and in the future, we can roll up our sleeves and work hard according to the direction pointed out by experts and scholars.
Strengthen cultural self-confidence in environmental protection
Reporter of Dazhong Daily, Dazhong News Client: How to find a suitable path for yourself in ecological and environmental protection?
Xu Liqiang: That's the right question. In traditional Chinese culture, we can draw infinite strength. For example, Qin slips unearthed more than 2,000 years ago include China's first "environmental protection law", the "Tian Law", which states that you cannot go up the mountain to hunt and harvest at the beginning of spring every year.
Each country has a different development cycle and different cultural heritage, and all protection must be based on the sustainable survival of human beings. In our traditional culture, there is an accumulation of "harmonious coexistence between man and nature". The so-called "all things have their own harmony to live, each has its own nourishment", thousands of years ago, our ancestors have put forward the theoretical basis of "harmonious coexistence between man and nature", we should find the basis of ethics and morality in cultural self-confidence.
In 2022, Xu Liqiang delivered a keynote speech at the 14th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Wetlands (photo provided by the interviewee)
Reporter of Dazhong Daily, Dazhong News Client: How to tell the Chinese story of ecological and environmental protection?
Xu Liqiang: What is more important is inheritance, how the ancestors passed on to us how to live in harmony with nature, we have to do it according to the words of the ancestors, and develop our strengths but not avoid our weaknesses. On the one hand, we should tell our protection story well and make our protection voice heard, and on the other hand, we should be soberly aware of our shortcomings and how to face the problems in protection and development.
How should we protect them? Who should protect them? How to make good use of the resources of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands to promote green, low-carbon and high-quality development? To put it in layman's terms, we have lucid waters and lush mountains, how to transform "lucid waters and lush mountains" into "gold and silver mountains" on the basis of protecting lucid waters and lush mountains, and I think this is also the ultimate title of the paper on "ecological environmental protection".
(Popular Daily, Popular News Client Reporter Liu Yufan, Lv Le)