Yunnan people love their hometown, no matter where they go, they still feel that their hometown is the most beautiful, and when they go out, they will also find ways to return to their hometown. In this story, there are four Yunnan people, including online science video authors obsessed with alpine plants, social activists for sustainable tourism, professors of Dai Tao Technology University, and wildlife nature documentary filmmakers, although currently living in the city, they have always maintained a deep love for their hometown and nature.
They went down the Lancang River, recorded the "wild wild growth" in their eyes with the camera, shared their thoughts on biodiversity from the perspective of locals, showed and recorded the more secret "hometown beauty" for us, and jointly explored the connection between ecosystems and people. We will divide into two parts, the first and the second, to tell you the story of them and Yunnan.
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In search of the "Flower of The High Ridge"
About the author
Aiji: Growing up between the Daisy Green Forest and the Snow-Capped Mountains, I first stepped out of the mountains at the age of 18. Staying in the city for many years, although it is colorful, it always feels less colorful. After self-diagnosis, it was found that it may be suffering from "snow mountain scarcity disorder"! By chance, Ai Ji returned to his hometown and returned to the snow-capped forest, and his love for highland plants was awakened.
In May this year, at the invitation of Greenpeace and the China International NGO Promotion and Cooperation Association, I went down the Lancang River from the Meili Snow Mountain in the northernmost part of Yunnan, through the Biluo Snow Mountain Secret South Pole Luo, and then to the Weixi Pantian Pavilion, just over 200 kilometers, visiting the Lancang River with the largest altitude difference, the most unique terrain, and extremely rich biodiversity and cultural diversity. When I look at the land of northwest Yunnan from another perspective, I am very proud of the vitality of nature.
-From Kawagebo to the Dry Hot Valley-
May is the beginning of the plateau flower season, from Lijiang to Shangri-La, through Xiaozhongdian, axillary rhododendron has bloomed into a sea of pink flowers. The first stop on the trip is the Lancang River Valley in the Meili Snow Mountain, a starting point of the Lancang River at the northernmost tip of Yunnan.
The upper reaches of the Lancang River, a dry and hot river valley in the direction of Deqin.
Kawagebo, the highest peak in Yunnan and the head of the Eight Sacred Mountains in Tibetan areas, is hidden in the clouds, and it is not so easy to see its full picture, and the unpredictable clouds occasionally sprinkle a few feet of sunlight, shining on the Mingyong Glacier. Glaciers, alpine primeval forests, and dry and hot river valleys form an intuitive vertical ecosystem, and the inaccessible mountains continue china's richest biodiversity.
From the flowing rock beaches and alpine meadows in the ice edge belt, to the coniferous forest, broad-leaved forest and then to the dry and hot valley shrub belt blown by the incinerator wind, the glacial meltwater washes through the forest into the Lancang River Grand Canyon, showing the plant distribution band spectrum from the cold to the tropics. Artemisia annua, snow rabbit, and ta huang bloom in the flowstone beach, primrose, rhododendron, rose are everywhere, spruce, fir, alpine pine, yew, alpine oak form layers of forest and color, most of the area here is inaccessible, unexplored, no one can say exactly how many plants there are here.
It is also a paradise for animals, where Yunnan golden snub-nosed monkeys, clouded leopards, etc. live an undisturbed life. From 4,000 meters above sea level to the river valley, villages dot the river and people live by the water.
At the 3,500-meter-high observation deck opposite the Mingyong Glacier, I looked at the majestic snow-capped peaks in front of me, clouds shrouding the forest, and seemingly desolate dry and hot river valleys dotted with emerald villages. The north-south Meili Snow Mountain is like a barrier, the Lancang River Grand Canyon cuts through the earth, and the first melting snow water and the mud and sand wrapped in rain rush all the way to the south.
-Discover the Emerald Dragon Lizard-
Descending the deqin river valley, the roadside is the narrow low-altitude dry and hot valley of the Lancang River, which looks desolate and lonely. When you stop and rest, there is a little guy on the rocky beach rocks on the side of the road, and it has a special emerald green body color: it is an emerald dragon lizard! This small lizard, a new species discovered in 2015, is found only in the dry and hot valleys of the Lancang River below 3,000 meters above sea level in The Ninon to northern Weixi counties of Deqin County.
In the upper reaches of the Lancang River, the habitat is crossed by the highway by the emerald dragon lizard.
I turned the camera on this beautiful little guy, the sun was just right, the emerald dragon lizard stretched its green body, sucking heat on the rocky beach, next to the bushes, or flexibly moving between the stone crevices...
Due to the short video of alpine plant science popularization, I often walk around in the high-altitude mountainous area, and I heard that there is a little-known alpine plant paradise called Antarctic Luo in the Biluo Snow Mountain along the Lancang River, which I have longed for for a long time, and it is also the destination I am most looking forward to on this trip.
After a night of listening to the cuckoos on the banks of the Lancang River, I woke up before the sun rose, but I couldn't see a cloud. Follow the mountain road to the Antarctic Lo Conservation Station, the altitude gradually rises, the sky is blue, and the fir trees tens of meters high are left alone in the valley.
Over the South Pole Pass, you can see a lake between a bay of rhododendron forests.
Over the Mouth of the Antarctic Loya, a sapphire-encrusted rhododendron forest appears in front of you: this is the most unique sight of The Antarctic Lok – alpine lake communities with an average altitude of 4,000 meters.
The whole Antarctica is a very complete highland lake ecosystem, cold alpine, primary forests, wetlands, plateau lakes, alpine rhododendron forests, tundra plants, flowing rock beaches... Rich and diverse topography creates a rich biodiversity. I searched carefully in the snow, a little bright red shining high on the cliff, a purple-backed cuckoo. The group continued to tumble through the snow and found that the newly melted snow was dotted with pink, which was only grown at a high altitude of 3900 meters above sea level, and the pink of the snowy mountain primrose was dotted on the snow.
Although heavy snow covered most of the vegetation, in a few exposed places, plateau flowers bloomed against the bitter cold. In places that are extremely difficult for humans to reach, the harsh natural environment does not mean that there is no life, and plants grow freely here, which is the real "flower of Gaoling".
Plateau primroses blooming in the freshly melted snow.
For me, who is engaged in the popularization of wild alpine plants, The Pantian Pavilion in Weixi County is an unexpected destination, and I am going to visit the unique old black valley here.
Pantiange is 2600 meters above sea level, rice loves warmth and water, how can rice be produced in such an alpine area? Pantiange is one of the highest rice producing areas in the world, known as the "roof of the world's rice", is a multi-ethnic settlement, people come to the mountain and the most precious piece of flat dam, so they live.
The family of the Pumi clan's fourth sister made a living by planting old black valleys, and when they arrived at the Pantian Pavilion, the fourth sister was waiting for us at the entrance of the village early. Fourth Sister Ah smiled and said to me, "Old Black Valley is our destiny!" Back at Ah Si Mei's house, the family had already cooked a pot of steaming old black valley, one by one with pale red rice, and looked closely at the marks of black rice husks. Surrounded by the warm Tibetan stove, eating steaming rice and old bacon, sipping a glass of wine made from old Black Valley, and listening to the stories of the villagers chatting about seeds. During the night talk of the hearth, there was a sound of rain outside, and Ah Si Mei clapped her hands happily: "It has finally rained, and tomorrow we can plant seedlings!" ”
The next day, the paddy field was busy. The man turned over the paddy field with nails and palladium, and the woman bowed her waist and inserted the seedlings from the rice tray neatly into the field. Ah Si Mei pointed to the pink perfume moon season (native species) that opened on the edge of the field and said: "The flower has bloomed, pick one and hide it in a separate rice tray, whoever finds this flower, whoever has good luck for a year." With that, Ah Si Mei walked into the paddy field and sang the Pumi rice planting song while planting seedlings.
The women of the Pumi ethnic group sing the songs of the seedlings when they plant seedlings.
I was touched by the intimate relationship between man and nature here, and the people worked in nature in a simple way, grateful for every gift.
Returning from the rice field, Xiao Fan, the 5-year-old granddaughter of Sister Ah, is holding a bamboo pole and driving a flock of geese like a conductor. When I was a child, I was also such a "wild child", and the farmland was the playground of childhood. At that time, my parents ran a small winery in the village at the foot of the snowy mountains, and the grain used for winemaking was corn, wheat and barley produced in the village, harvested the grain, brewed wine, and then used the lees to raise the family's chickens, ducks, geese and pigs.
Cao Jian, the handiwork of nature observers
Li Qian: Graduated from the University of Edinburgh majoring in plant taxonomy, she began to work in documentary filming in 2013, and has participated in the production of many films such as the Yunnan Golden Monkey Documentary "The Mysterious Monkey of Shangri-La" (2014) and the film "Born in China" (2016). Li Qian loves alpine flowers, is good at watercolor painting, and her field work experience is her eternal source of inspiration.
I was born and raised in Dali, and I am a well-known Yunnan native. Between the Cangshan Mountains and the Erhai Sea, contact with nature is a thing that does not need to be deliberately created, but it is the experience of reading and working that gives me the opportunity to open up and examine this land. This trip around the Stream of the Lancang River is mixed with this mood of looking back.
In my memory, there has always been a scene of the sun being sifted through the canopy of huge spruce trees into a streak of slits and slits as it truncated the same tall rhododendron trees. In the scene here, there is always thin air, clear wind, dazzling glare, and snow-capped mountains. This trip, for me, is more like going to meet a friend who has been friends for a long time but has never met, and there is a solid expectation.
-Caojian Forest Farm, Old and New-
Caojian is a township in Dali Prefecture sandwiched between the Nu and Lancang rivers, about a 3-hour drive from Dali, but it was my first arrival. An important destination for the trip was the Caojian Forest Farm, where I was planned to see a wide variety of rhododendrons.
Label of the critically endangered species Red Calyx Rhododendron sown in Caojian Forest Farm.
The forest farm office compound is located on the outskirts of Caojian Town, and early in the morning the friends of the forest farm knew that I had come to see the flowers, so they said that they must take me to see the nursery of the forest farm. The nursery is a kindergarten for plants, and for plant lovers, it is a link full of surprises. 100 years ago, the alpine rhododendrons of the Himalayan Corridor were brought back to Europe by plant hunters, and the world's horticultural landscape changed dramatically. Thanks to the efforts of breeders, the rhododendron, a gorgeous flower from a remote mountain, has greatly decorated gardens around the world.
In contemporary times, the importance of native land and native species conservation is gradually recognized, and the ultra-high biodiversity and ecological value of alpine rhododendron are far above its aesthetic value. Although the artificial breeding results of the red calyx rhododendron are still uncertain, each outcome of ecological conservation requires long-term perseverance by conservation workers.
- Zhiben Mountain, rainforest and snow mountain plants side by side-
In the jurisdiction of Caojian Forest Farm, the forest of Zhiben Mountain is the most representative. In the valleys of the middle and upper reaches of the Lancang River, when the air currents are lifted and cooled by the tall mountains, the water gradually condenses into clouds, nourishing an evergreen broad-leaved forest with epiphytes hanging from the branches. The car drives up the mountain road that loops back and forth, and the abundance of the forest is revealed in turn.
The southern star that grows with the beautiful cuckoo.
Between this patchwork of dense forests, the woolhouse cuckoo is the absolute protagonist of the season. In full bloom, it throws dazzling clusters of flowers at any cost and leans swaggeringly on the hillside by the side of the road.
Drive further down the road to Zhiben Mountain, and the highest place you can reach by car is the alpine meadow. There is a flat wetland at the col surrounded by mountains, which is a summer pasture with abundant water and grass, and the horses and sheep stop and go, and the clouds move faster than they do.
The Lancang River is in Yunlong County, cutting deep canyons from north to south, and the valley bottom is a wide river surface. Before the rainy season arrives, the river has a hint of blue-green undertone. In the afternoon, the river valley raised the wind, and the power of this wind came from the rise of the surface air after being heated, and the hot air surged in the inverted triangular canyon, stirring up a large vortex, and at this moment the birds of prey glide high in the valley with this strong wind, and did not flap their wings for a long time; the sound of the water flowing at the bottom of the valley was also brought and blown away by the wind, and it was far and near.
The Lancang River Valley in Yunlong County.
-Cloud Dragon Tianchi, Starry Sky and Elves-
Yunlong Tianchi in the Yunlong County more than 20 miles west of the mountain, settled luggage, I can't wait to pick up the flashlight, think of the lake to try their luck, where there is water, at night will definitely encounter small animals. But when I got to the open, my attention was drawn to the overwhelming starry sky. Above the heavenly pool, there is a clean and complete sky full of stars. In the days I left my hometown, it was rare to have the opportunity to witness the starry sky without orange edges.
The temperament of the highland lake is mysterious and introverted, and I guess this atmosphere probably comes from the clouds in the mountains, and the lake surface is often obscured by water vapor and it is rare to get a glimpse of the whole picture.
But this morning, it is the beginning of the daily day of the dry season, "it has not rained for a long time, it is better to take you on a trip to our daily road into the mountains, although the flowers are not much, but there are many interesting things." "We conducted a short jungle nature observation. There are Yunnan pines, hemlocks, green hills, oak trees, vines and pines in this forest, and the ground is covered with thick deciduous leaves, a type of vegetation that I am familiar with. Halfway through, a cloud of white flashed in front of me, and I went up into the dense forest high up, and the local villager told me that it was a white bird. The white bird is a bird similar in size to a chicken with white feathers on its back. I didn't see the face of the white bird, but found feathers falling from its black and white striped wings in the bushes.
Before the surprise subsided, the local villagers found porcupine spines scattered in dead leaves, "The yellow-throated mink killed a porcupine here a few days ago." "Look closely at the porcupine spines, about the same length as a toothpick, sharp at both ends, longitudinally in the middle, one side black and one side white. After this short trip down the mountain, I seemed to have visited a slice of the forest and gathered all the birds, animals, insects and snakes in one breath.
Li Qian picked up the white bird feathers hunted by the yellow-throated martens and the spines dropped by the porcupine in Yunlong Tianchi.
-Big Wave Dam, Nature's Dynamic Healing-
In the alpine meadows to the west of Tianchi, there is a place that has become familiar to tourists in recent years, called Dalangba. Here you can see a near-perfect-looking Yunnan pine forest, tens of meters high Yunnan pine pointing straight to the sky. Some scientists believe that the Yunnan pine forests in the middle reaches of the Lancang River are mostly secondary developments of native species. Yunnan Matsumoto is the most primitive semi-humid evergreen broad-leaved forest tree species, after the original forest was disturbed, it quickly gained a dominant position with strong tolerance and adaptability, forming a simple Yunnan pine forest. Dalangba is located in the hinterland of Hengduan Mountain, where the three rivers flow side by side, where the geological movement is active, and the geomorphology and ecosystem have more possibilities than geologically stable areas.
Human beings often get inspiration from nature, and mountains and valleys are even more imaginative, and in the direction of the lower reaches of the Lancang River as far as the eye can see, I can't help but imagine how a river can become an image of the vein of the land, like having life and having a soul.
Editor | the elder
Picture | Yan Di, Li Qian, Ai Ji, Qiu Yisheng, Li Wei, Dani
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