On July 28, 2021, at the 44th World Heritage Conference held in Fuzhou, China, Chongqing Wulipo National Nature Reserve was successfully listed as a Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site, becoming the third place in our city to be listed as a World Natural Heritage Site after Wulong and Jinfoshan.
So, why can Chongqing Wulipo National Nature Reserve (hereinafter referred to as "Wulipo Nature Reserve") successfully apply for heritage? What's the story behind it? What tangible benefits will the successful application bring to the local economic and social development?
Recently, Chongqing Daily learned during an interview in Wushan County that in recent years, Wushan has adhered to the subtraction of environmental damage and the addition of ecological development, achieving a benign resonance of protection and development.
Wulipo National Nature Reserve. (File photo)
Five Mile Slope
Natural biological species gene pool
In late June this year, a video of the discovery of insect-catching plants in Chongqing went viral, and the video was filmed in the Wulipo Nature Reserve. It has been confirmed that this insect catching plant is called round-leaved thatched grass, which is mainly distributed in Heilongjiang, Jilin and other places, and was first found in Chongqing.
Wulipo Nature Reserve is located in the northeast of Wushan County, as early as September 2000, Wulipo County-level Nature Reserve was established, promoted to a municipal nature reserve in 2002, approved by the State Council as a national nature reserve in 2013, and set up a special management agency.
The intersection of the Sub-region of the Loess Plateau, the Sub-region of the Western Mountain Plateau and the Sub-Region of the Eastern Hilly Plain in Wulipo Nature Reserve, with an altitude of between 175-2680 meters, has 3000 hectares of primary forest, nearly 300 hectares of native subalpine meadows, and 26.6 hectares of rare plant spikes and fir communities.
"The special topography and altitude climate change provide superior conditions for the preservation of ancient plant types." Zhou Houlin, a forestry expert in Wushan County, told reporters that especially during the Quaternary Ice Age, benefiting from the barrier effect of Qinling And Daba Mountain, many rare plants in the Wulipo Nature Reserve have been preserved and have become a rare natural biological species gene bank in southwest China.
According to the data, at present, 3001 species of vascular plants, 2790 species of seed plants, 211 species of ferns have been found in wulipo nature reserve, and there are 16 species of national level I key protected wild plants such as metasequoia, ginkgo biloba, juniper, yew tree, southern yew, etc.; there are 447 species of terrestrial wild vertebrates and 17 species of national grade I protected animals, which are important habitats for rare and endangered wild animals such as forest musk and black bear.
"It is also an important ecological barrier in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area and an important water source of the National Strategic Reserve of High-quality Water Resources, and it also has protection value in terms of ecological location and water resources." The relevant person in charge of the Wulipo Conservation Area Management Affairs Center said.
Do a good job of addition and subtraction
"Civil air defense + technical defense" guards biological vegetation
However, it is not easy to guard the green mountains and rivers of the Wulipo Conservation Area. Before Wushan County launched the application for the Wulipo Nature Reserve in 2017, there were still more than 8,000 villagers living in the reserve, and many villagers set up farms on the spot, posing a threat to the ecosystem of the reserve.
In recent years, Wushan has strictly adhered to the ecological red line and continued to carry out ecological environment improvement in the Wulipo Protected Area. "The protected area is divided into three levels: the core area, the buffer zone and the experimental area, and it is strictly forbidden to carry out production and operation activities, including farmhouses, in the core area and buffer zone. In the experimental area, under the premise of not affecting the ecology and complying with relevant laws and regulations, it is appropriate to engage in business activities such as eco-tourism and ecological health care. The relevant person in charge of the Management Affairs Center of Wulipo Nature Reserve told reporters.
By the end of 2020, Lian Shimei, a villager in Lihe Village, Dangyang Township, demolished part of the illegal construction of the house and closed the farm that had been operating for three years. At this point, all 44 farms in Lihe Village have been banned and closed.
"I certainly didn't want to." Lian Shimei said that it cost more than 300,000 yuan to repair the house, and the farm is the family's main source of income. However, the town and village cadres repeatedly went to the door to do work and talk about policies, and saw that the ecological environment in the village was getting better and better, and there were farms around them that completed the demolition and prohibition in accordance with laws and regulations, and Lian Shimei finally decided to obey the overall situation. With the help of the government, she has now found a new job in the county seat and has a more stable income.
Environmental damage is subtracted, and ecological development is added.
In 2017, taking the opportunity of applying for heritage, Wulipo Nature Reserve established a three-level three-dimensional management model including management center, management and protection station (point), and ecological ranger, and carried out "grid" inspection and patrol of the inaccessible primary forest.
Shen Fajin, who is in his 50s, is a ranger in the Wulipo Nature Reserve, with an average daily patrol of more than 30 kilometers. He made more and more mountain tours, and he became a half botanist. "You see, this is the lesser leaf gentian, belongs to the gentian family, can be medicated..." On July 10, Shen Fajin gave reporters "science popularization" while patrolling the mountains. In December last year, the management agency of Wulipo Nature Reserve, together with the county forestry bureau and the county public security bureau, launched a five-month special operation to combat the destruction of wild animals and plants, and he also joined in the whole operation, destroying 2 wild hunting dens, cracking 2 cases of illegal hunting of wild animals, and effectively cracking down on illegal hunting of wild animals and digging wild plants.
In recent years, the number of formal employees in Wulipo Nature Reserve has expanded to 31, and there are 100 central stewards and ecological rangers distributed in various townships. The reserve has also invested more than 10 million yuan to strengthen infrastructure construction, purchased technical defense equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles, handheld satellite positioning terminals, and infrared cameras, and applied intelligent means to protection supervision.
"Civil air defense + technical defense have made the ecological vegetation of the reserve better and better, and the landscape, forest, field, lake and grass have been integrated." Shen Fajin said.
Why not file separately?
The aim is to enhance the integrity of the Shennongjia heritage site
It is worth noting that the Wulipo Nature Reserve is not declared a World Natural Heritage Site as a new project in China, but is under consideration as a fine-tuning project on the boundary of the Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site in Hubei Province.
Why?
"Wulipo and Shennongjia Natural Heritage Site belong to the same Daba Mountain Arc, bordering about 9 kilometers, and the connection between the two is an important channel for the reproduction of many species, which together constitute the natural species corridor of the Daba Mountain Forest." Huang Yong, deputy county magistrate of Wushan County, explained that as early as 2017, when they started the application for heritage, they identified the Wulipo "application" path - the Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site Boundary Fine-tuning Project, "the purpose is to enhance the international recognition of the Wulipo Conservation Area and enhance the integrity of the Shennongjia Heritage Site." ”
In June 2018, Shennongjia National Park and six nature reserves, including Wulipo, established the Huxi-Yudong Nature Reserve Alliance, breaking administrative boundaries and building a large protection mechanism for natural ecological connectivity, joint protection and joint defense, laying the foundation for Wulipo to be included in the fine-tuning scope of Shennongjia boundary.
In December 2018, the Shennongjia Forestry District Government and the Forestry Department of Hubei Province agreed to wulipo to declare the World Natural Heritage through the fine adjustment of the boundary of the Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site. On 27 January 2020, the Report on Minor Boundary Adjustments of the Shennongjia World Heritage Site in Hubei Province (No. 1509) was submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and passed the integrity review. On 4 June 2021, the Official Website of the World Heritage Centre published a draft resolution approving the proposal for Chongqing Wulipo to be included in the proposal for minor adjustments to the boundary of the Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site in Hubei Province, China.
Take the opportunity of the successful application for heritage
Bring more ecological dividends to the masses
Taking the application for heritage as an opportunity to make tourism bigger and stronger is an important way for Wushan to transform its ecological advantages into development advantages.
This summer, Hu Hua, the owner of the Hongchu Village homestay in Dangyang Township, obviously felt that the business was much better than in previous years. Since July alone, his homestay has received an average of about 100 visitors a day, and four rooms have been full for a month.
Hu Hua was one of the first migrant workers in the village to return to their hometowns, and as early as 2015, he converted his earthen wall house into a homestay. In order to attract tourists, he put up the slogan "Close to Shennongjia". "To be honest, this slogan is a bit embarrassing, because I am here from Shennongjia Scenic Area, at least nearly two hours by car." Hu Hua said that in those years, his homestay earned up to 10,000 or 20,000 yuan a year, and some of the surrounding farms were forced to close due to cold business.
It was not until around 2018, through the application for heritage, the local government increased the publicity of the entire protected area, and the situation began to change. Dangyang Township also put forward the tourism development idea of "one heart, three points and three lines" due to the situation, that is, with Dangyangchang Town as the center, to create three tourist routes of Pingdang Road, Dangliang Road and Dangjiu Road, and radiation to drive the development of rural tourism in areas such as Zhongping, Ninziping and Zhongxinping.
Hu Hua's homestay is in the area of Zhongping, and as the application for heritage continues to advance, Wulipo's fame is getting bigger and bigger, and his business is getting better and better. It is understood that in the past two years alone, Dangyang Township has added 2 homestays and more than 40 farms, and the comprehensive annual income of tourism in the township has reached 5 million yuan.
Although adjacent to Shennongjia, due to the special altitude landform, Wulipo Nature Reserve has many species that are not recorded in Shennongjia. After the successful application for heritage, 5782 hectares of forests, wetlands, habitats and biological corridors of important animals and plants in Wulipo Nature Reserve have been included in the unified protection and management of the World Heritage Site, which has importantly extended and supplemented the original forest ecosystem and biodiversity of Shennongjia World Natural Heritage Site. The two governments will also continue to promote exchanges and cooperation between Wulipo Nature Reserve and Shennongjia National Park, and further explore the governance pattern of joint consultation, co-management and sharing with the Huxi-Yudong Nature Reserve Alliance as the carrier, and jointly improve the ecological connectivity and integrity of the heritage sites.
"Next, we will explore the protection and utilization of heritage sites from the aspects of resource protection, scientific research cooperation, and integration of culture and tourism." Huang Yong told reporters that on the basis of finding out the current situation of various natural resource assets in the heritage sites, we will increase cooperation with scientific research institutions, carry out special monitoring and investigation of key and endangered wild animals and plants, endemic rare plants, etc., build wildlife rescue stations and scientific research monitoring laboratories, and make every effort to improve the level of scientific research. Vigorously promote the construction of projects such as biodiversity exhibition halls and education corridors in protected areas, forming an integrated mission layout with exhibition halls in urban areas, mission experience bases in protected areas, propaganda classrooms in townships, and propaganda columns in villages, so as to enhance the awareness of ecological protection of the whole people. At the same time, on the basis of strictly adhering to the ecological red line, a number of eco-tourism and ecological health care bases will be developed around the heritage site, so that the "green business card" of Wulipo will bring more ecological dividends to the local people.
Reporter: Zuo Liyun
Source: Chongqing Daily