Fang Zhendong, founder of Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden: Building an "Ark" for Endangered Plants
China News Service Shangri-La September 26 Title: Fang Zhendong, founder of Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden: Building an "Ark" for Endangered Plants
Written by Xie Ying
In September, the Diqing Plateau is almost exhausted, and the branches of the small leaf gardenia and the Zhongdian hawthorn begin to hang red fruits. Walking through the Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden, Fang Zhendong's eyes stayed on a plant with different shapes in turn, "This is the Zhongdian thorn rose, the city flower of Shangri-La, which we rescued and transplanted from a reservoir submerged area; this is zhongdian aconitum, but unfortunately we only collected the seeds of one population..."
Fang Zhendong, a 57-year-old graduate of the Biology Department of Yunnan University, could have chosen to continue his career in alpine plant research, but in 2000, he resolutely made a decision that made his family and friends extremely puzzled - he gave up the opportunity to transfer to the mainland to work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and stayed at Shangri-La at an altitude of 3400 meters to build a full-time alpine botanical garden.
Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where Shangri-La is located, is located in the hinterland of Hengduan Mountain in the southeast foothills of the Himalayas, where the Jinsha, Lancang and Nu rivers form a world-renowned natural geographical landscape of "three parallel rivers". The valley is connected to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the north and the tropical region in the south, becoming a north-south diffusion channel and an east-west confluence of plants, with 330 species of ferns alone and more than 4,600 seed plants, and a large number of animals and plants grow and reproduce here, forming a rare species gene pool.
Talking about the original intention, Fang Zhendong recalled, "In the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh, I saw many alpine flowers such as rhododendrons, primroses, and artemisia green velvet that were brought to Europe by plant hunters from the southwest region of China, but in their hometown, why is there no base camp for ornamental horticultural plants, so that people from all over the world can come here and pay attention to our biodiversity? ”
Fang Zhendong collects plant specimens outdoors. Photo by Liu Ranyang
Behind the beautiful ideal is full of thorns. The first difficulty in front of Fang Zhendong is the financial crisis: land compensation, park construction, employee wages, are all costs, in the case of insufficient funds, Fang Zhendong can only take out the family's savings, and then patch together to fill the loopholes. For a simple scientist, doing budgets and operating are all headaches for Fang Zhendong. It wasn't until three or four years ago that he achieved a "small goal": "I finally don't have to borrow anymore." ”
These 20 years are the 20 years that Fang Zhendong has been busy with the botanical garden, and it is also the 20 years of rapid development of Yunnan construction. As a Native of Yunnan who grew up in the Weixi countryside of Diqing, he was relieved; but at the same time, he also saw that the process of urbanization and the improvement of tourism facilities inevitably invaded the habitat of wild animals and plants. How economic activities can minimize their ecological impact is a perpetual confusion throughout the history of human civilization, and it was also a huge question mark that haunted Fang Zhendong's mind.
Speaking of the views of some extreme environmentalists, Fang Zhendong frowned, "All human activities must give way for the sake of the natural environment? This is unrealistic. National construction and the improvement of people's livelihood are all good things. Human beings have lived on this planet for so long, what we have to do is not to refuse to develop, but to pursue balance. ”
Fang Zhendong uses a microscope to observe plant specimens in his office. Photo by Liu Ranyang
The original vision of "establishing an ornamental horticultural base" was further extended and changed in Fang Zhendong's mind, and finally it was specifically to transplant the endangered extremely small population of plants to the botanical garden, carry out ex situ protection, realize breeding, and build a "Noah's Ark" for these precious genes.
After more than 20 years of efforts, Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden has sheltered more than 1,000 kinds of seed plants and more than 30 species of ferns, such as vermilion rhododendron, Zhongdian thornberry and large fruit juniper, and also provided a pure land for local people with biodiversity.
Walking in the botanical garden, a Tibetan girl who was pruning branches smiled shyly. "This is Dolma." Fang Zhendong introduced. Dolma is one of the staff recruited by the Botanical Garden in the local community. "At first, the people here didn't quite understand me. So I simply organize professional skills training for them, let them know what the botanical garden does, and then provide jobs. Previously, many women like Dolma, who married and had children at a young age, did not go out to work, but now they have career opportunities in the botanical garden. This is an example of the mutual achievement of man and nature. Fang Zhendong said.
In the Shangri-La Alpine Botanical Garden, the Tea Horse Trail runs through the mountains, and the ruins of Gunqin Temple are silently hidden in it. At the beginning of the establishment of the park, Fang Zhendong established the purpose of never destroying these cultural relics.
Today, this "Noah's Ark" has realized the ideal country in Fang Zhendong's heart - in the balance between man and nature, everything in the world is endless. (End)
Source: China News Network