On 20 December 2013, the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly decided to designate 3 March of each year as World Wildlife Day to raise awareness of the world's wildlife.
In the past decade or so, many books on scientists, naturalists, conservationists, and writers have been published in China, giving readers the opportunity to have "intimate" contact with them.
Jane Goodall, a British biologist and ethologist known as the "chimpanzee mother", traveled to the primeval forests of Africa at the age of 26 to observe chimpanzees, spending 38 years in the wild. Many of her books have been published in China.
"Chimpanzees Are Calling", which was selected as "20th Century Science Popularization Masterpiece Recommended by Scientists", translated by Liu Houyi and Zhang Feng, published by Science Press in 1980. This book is a true account of Goodall's more than ten years of investigative life. The book has vivid descriptions of the hierarchical relationships in chimpanzee "society", their living habits, and so on.
In 1990, the China Radio and Television Publishing House published Jane Goodall's Thirty Years with Chimpanzees, which recounts her adventures observing wild chimpanzees in primeval forests. In 2013, "Reasons for Hope: Goodall's Spiritual Journey", published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House, reviewed her life experience and even her personal spiritual journey.
Jane Goodall's experience has inspired many people, such as Lu Zhi, a professor at Peking University and a well-known wildlife conservationist. However, what makes the domestic general public intuitively feel what is called being with wild animals is the book "My Wild Animal Friends" that swept the country in 2002.
The author is a french girl, Tippi de Grey, who was born in Namibia, Africa in 1990. Her parents are professional wildlife photographers. After birth, Tippi followed her parents through the deserts and jungles of southern Africa, where she was exposed to many wild animals. The book is a moving story and personal experience of Tipi's life with a variety of african wildlife after returning to Paris at the age of 10.
More than 130 wild animal photographs taken by her parents in Africa allow the reader to see the little girl, riding on the back of an ostrich, letting the little lion Mufasa suck her fingers and nap, naked in the river with an elephant trunk spray bathing... Photographs impact people's visions and hearts, and it turns out that people and wild animals can be so intimate.
Time magazine named Jane Goodall the "Most Outstanding Wildlife Scientist" of the 20th Century, along with American wildlife expert George Schaller.
George Schaller has been committed to the conservation and research of wild animals, has carried out zoological research in Africa, Asia, South America, he has written many books on mammals in Africa and Asia, which has been widely welcomed, of which "The Lion of Serengeti" won the 1972 National Book Award, and "The Last Panda" and "Creatures on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" written on his research experience in China have also become international bestsellers.
Among them, "Life on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau" was published by East China Normal University Press in 2003. Another book, The Last Panda, was published by Guangming Daily Press in 1998 and republished by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 2015. In 2011, Hunan Education Publishing House also published his "With the Beast: A Naturalist's Field Expedition Notes", which collected 19 of his field expedition notes.
Pei Jiaqi, a wildlife scientist in Taiwan, is not only a wildlife researcher, but also a practitioner. In 2003, Guangxi Normal University Press published his book Dancing with Wild Animals.
If wild animals can be friends with people, then wild plants are awe and admiration.
In The World's Oldest and Oldest Life, published in October 2016 by Peking University Press, Rachel Sasman, an American contemporary artist, travels across five continents, from the Arctic to the Mojave Desert, to photograph 30 extremely rare ancient lives that have persisted for more than 2,000 years. Along with these precious photographs, the authors tell the story of their own expeditions to track them around the globe, as well as the insights of scientists who are studying these ancient life and the environment in which they live.
Peking University professor Liu Huajie observed and photographed wild plants for more than ten years, published a number of works on naturalistic research, and he also advocated learning and understanding from the wildflowers and wildweeds around him, which were published by the China Science and Technology Publishing House "Chongli Wildflowers" and "Yanqing Wildflowers", exquisite large pictures, clear normative name labeling can be used as a practical introductory manual for understanding the grass and trees of his hometown.
In 2011, published by Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, Hope: A Story of Saving Endangered Flora and Fauna is a collection of wildlife and plant stories written by Jane Goodall, Sean Maynard, Gayle Hudson and others, "in honor of Martha, the world's last passenger pigeon, the last Miss Watton red colobus monkey and the last white-tipped dolphin." Their lonely and helpless endings inspire us to work harder to prevent other rare animals facing the same fate from repeating the same mistakes."
The establishment of a day such as "World Wildlife Day" is a reminder to people living on the earth that man and nature need each other and can live in harmony. (Xiping)
China Science Daily (2017-03-10 6th Edition Reading)