- Established in 1965, Wanglang National Nature Reserve is home to about 30 endangered giant pandas, as well as other rare wild animals.
- Timber-dependent communities near Wanglang, hard-pressed since logging restrictions were enacted in 1998, have turned to illegal poaching, logging, and collecting of wild mushrooms and herbs, often disturbing panda habitat and threatening the effective management of Wanglang reserve.
- After scrapping a successful ecotourism program in Wanglang, the local government is working quickly to expand mass tourism in a way that reserve officials say will threaten panda habitat.
| Other stories in Mongabay’s series on changing forest practices in China: Chinese villagers turn from logging to forest patrols, bees, and fish Can China’s first private nature reserve become truly sustainable? Making a living inside a reserve: an interview with village head Zou Huagang PHOTOS: On a Chinese mountain, an aging anti-poaching hero ponders the future |
In late April, forest rangers caught Chen Yunxia, a young woman in her twenties, and her father and aunt red-handed during a seasonal anti-poaching, anti-logging sweep in Wanglang National Nature Reserve. The purpose of the Chen family’s illegal entry into a protected high-altitude meadow inside the reserve was to excavate cordyceps (Cordyceps sinensis), a valuable fungus used in traditional Chinese medicine that parasitizes caterpillars.
Each spring, villagers from the region surrounding Wanglang climb over high mountains, trek through thick coniferous forest, and sometimes risk their lives to enter the reserve’s “core zone,” the designated no-entry area in Chinese nature reserves. Their quarry is pricey herbs, including the cordyceps, which can sell for over 150 yuan ($23) per gram.
“The average annual income from cordyceps harvest can amount to 10,000 yuan [$1,550] for a single family, accounting for almost half of the total annual income of a family in some poor neighboring communities, ” Chen Youping, former director of the Wanglang Nature Reserve Management Bureau (WNRMB), told Mongabay.
“Later we also learned that Chen Yunxia’s mother was staying in bed, suffering from chronic illness, and thus we just made records of each one of them, confiscated all their tools, and sent them home after they promised not to come into the reserve illegally again,” added Chen Youping (who is not related to the cordyceps harvesters).
Even so, the family’s activities were prohibited by China’s Nature Reserve Management Regulation and posed a serious threat to the protected area, according to Chen Youping. The alpine meadow they entered is a fragile ecosystem and damage, once made, is irreversible. In addition, their cutting of branches or small trees for firewood could cause a disastrous forest fire, he said.
“During the 51 years since our reserve was set up, on the one hand, we have been combating illegal poaching or logging with our full strength; on the other hand we understand some local communities’ hard living situation and try different means to assist their development, improving their livelihood,” an official with the WNRMB’s Science Research Department who requested anonymity to avoid displeasing local government officials told Mongabay.
An ecotourism start up
Established in 1965, Wanglang National Nature Reserve is one of the first four nature reserves set up specifically to protect endangered giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), as well as other rare wild animals and their habitat. Situated in Pingwu County in northwestern Sichuan province, a biodiversity hotspot between the Himalayas and the Hengduan Mountains, the reserve covers 320 square kilometers (124 square miles).
The third national giant panda survey, published for the area in 2003, found 27 pandas living in the reserve’s wildness. The number increased to over 30 in the most recent survey, published in 2012. Wanglang is also home to other endangered species, such as Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), takin (Budorcas taxicolor), black musk deer (Moschus fuscus), and golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana).
In 1998, China’s central government launched the Natural Forest Conservation Program, instigating a widespread logging ban in response to catastrophic floods along the Yangtze River. The logging ban was especially stringent in the region of the Yangtze’s headwaters, which means logging in protected areas of Sichuan has been strictly prohibited.
This put timber-dependent local communities in a tough position. With only minimal government subsidies to compensate for the loss of forest income, they have been hard-pressed to find alternative income-generating occupations. Local villagers have turned to illegal poaching, logging, and collecting of wild mushrooms and herbs, often disturbing panda habitat and threatening the effective management of Wanglang reserve. Relations between the reserve and the Baima, a minority group numbering some 1,500 people, were tense for quite some time.
In 1996, the global NGO the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) began offering financial and technical assistance to the reserve to launch an ecotourism program, with the goal of helping local Baima villagers make money without depleting the forest. At the time, ecotourism, though popular in countries like Australia and Nepal, was a new concept in China, where fast-food-like mass tourism, featuring the efficient management of large crowds, was the norm. Ecotourism focuses not on attracting large quantities of tourists, but mainly on attracting high-quality tourists, such as nature or culture lovers, professionals, researchers, and students who seek profoundness in observing and learning about natural environments and local cultures.
Chen Youping, the director of the reserve at the time, and his team members were open to the new way of thinking about tourism and accepted WWF’s offer. In addition to establishing ecotourism programs and facilities within the reserve, the WNRMB, with the assistance of WWF’s Integrated Community Development Program, trained local Baima communities to develop and exhibit their distinctive minority culture for tourists and to set up restaurants and homestays in their villages.
In 2001, ecotourism in Wanglang and its neighboring Baima communities attracted over 10,000 people from both inside and outside China, generating considerable income for the Baima. In 2005, Wanglang received “Green Globe 21” certification for the sustainability of its ecotourism brand from Green Globe, a Los Angeles-based certification company.
The success of the ecotourism program helped Wanglang strengthen its scientific research, conservation, and educational activities, as well as its relationship with the Baima community. Several universities and research institutes have helped the reserve set up valuable ecological-monitoring databases.
Over the years Wanglang has conducted various community-based development and conservation projects, including training local communities in organic beekeeping and the sustainable use of wild traditional Chinese medicinal resources. Cooperating with domestic nature conservation NGOs, such as Shanshui Conservation Center, Wanglang also helped develop branding and packaging for local honey products and set up marketing channels so beekeepers can earn a better price for their products.
“The acquisition price for honey … increased by 20 percent after its renewed branding and marketing,” the anonymous WNRMB official said. He added that with marketing assistance from Wanglang, local communities can now sell wuweizi, the medicinal fruit of the Schisandra chinensis vine, at ten times its former price. WWF has been training them to gather the fruit using sustainable methods, which they do outside the reserve.
Wanglang also provides eco-education opportunities for students from across the country, accepting around 200 students each year for summer and winter camps.
Mass tourism threatens
These successes helped Wanglang develop an international reputation as a model reserve. However, less known by the outside world, the situation has taken a sharp turn since 2006, when the government of Mianyang city 110 kilometers (68 miles) away decided to develop Wanglang and Baima into an important and profitable tourism destination.
Although Wanglang is technically a national reserve, in reality it is controlled by the local government of Pingwu County, which is subservient to the Mianyang city government. The Mianyang and Pingwu governments, similar to local governments nationwide, try to maximize tourism-related tax revenue in order to boost the local economy.
A Pingwu County government official who spoke with Mongabay on condition of anonymity said that in 2006 the Mianyang city government created a new office called the Wanglang Baima Scenic Spot Management Bureau to take charge of tourism development for both Wanglang and Baima. This effectively steamrollered Wanglang reserve’s ecotourism program, which closed down the same year.
According to the official, plans drawn up by the city government and a private tourism-development enterprise went so far as to envision building Wanglang and Baima into the second largest tourism economic zone in Sichuan province, after the nearby mass-tourism mecca of Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, which sometimes receives over 5 million visitors a year.
Due to an official reshuffle inside Sichuan province, the project was temporarily suspended around 2013, but is now marching ahead. In 2013, Tenio Group, a private company that remains in charge of tourism in Wanglang, planned to invest 3 billion yuan (then $488 million) into building the reserve into a major attraction that could draw more than 600,000 visitors a year, according to media reports. So far, certain major facilities, including the reserve’s entrance square and parking lot, have been finished. During Mongabay’s visit, some of the trails and bridges inside the reserve were under construction.
The number of tourists coming to Wanglang and Baima has indeed increased steadily in recent years. Without ecotourism guidance from Wanglang, the Baima continue to provide food and accommodation for most tourists and have expanded their ventures to accommodate the rising number of visitors, who arrive in packed tour buses.
The latest available figures, from 2011, put the number of annual visitors to Wanglang at 50,000 and they have increased since then, WNRMB’s deputy director Zhao Lianjun told Mongabay. A shopkeeper at the Baixiongping (White Bear Ground) service station inside Wanglang reserve told Mongabay that except during winter, a significant stream of tourists visit the reserve. “During the peak time from September to November, daily tourists could amount to 2,000 to 3,000,” he said.
Construction of a new highway from the city of Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve is expected to be completed within five to seven years, which would shorten the driving time to Wanglang, further increasing the influx.
Yet in Chen Youping’s eyes, 30,000 visitors a year is the maximum the reserve can sustain without damaging panda habitat. With its ecotourism program halted and no new money coming in as part of the mass tourism plan, Wanglang has few defenses against the incoming tide of tourists.
“We will definitely face heavier pressure from the future booming tourism industry, and so far I cannot imagine how we could handle it when the number of tourists rockets up to hundreds of thousands!” exclaimed Zhao. “The contradiction between the local government’s need for economic development and the nature preservation efforts are not a unique issue for Wanglang, but common for almost all nature reserves inside China,” he said.
Unchecked overgrazing
With the Mianyang government’s announcement that it would develop mass tourism in Wanglang, there were rumors that Baima villagers would receive compensation for giving up their livestock. Driven by the potential of lucrative profit from government compensation, Baima villagers have been expanding their herds by purchasing horses and cows.
The villagers now routinely leave some 1,000 livestock to wander freely inside the reserve. The practice is illegal but it’s hard to trace ownership of unattended herds and Wanglang officials aren’t authorized to confiscate livestock. So the animals have destroyed trees and undergrowth and even started to eat bamboo due to a lack of sufficient grass. Visitors to Wanglang can see herds of horses and cows grazing on roadside grasslands, and some even climb up to the highest alpine meadows.
Most of the nearby Baima villagers have benefited a lot from tourism, and each family can now make an annual income of 100,000 yuan ($15,500)—five times the average in the region’s poorer communities. Despite their newfound affluence, however, most Baima villagers “do not have awareness in ecological protection,” Chen Jichang, a former Deputy Party Secretary of Baima township who now writes about the Baima community, told Mongabay. In addition to increasing their livestock, Baima villagers consume shockingly large amounts of firewood every winter, Chen Jichang said.
“They have not yet realized that protecting the environment is a way to secure and sustain their livelihood in developing tourism. This serious issue makes me worry about the future of ecological protection in Wanglang and the surrounding region,” he added.
Research as a last defense
Complicating the challenges Wanglang faces are the contradicting motivations of different local government departments. “For example, the local animal husbandry bureau wants to increase herding range, the tourism bureau’s target is booming tourism, while the transportation department aims to build highways,” said WNRMB’s Zhao Lianjun.
“However, all these departments are fulfilling their roles without considering whether their actions cause ecological damage to the giant panda’s natural habitat. Conservation requires the combined efforts of multiple stakeholders, rather than just one group,” he said.
In the face of these pressures, Wanglang can do little. Zhao Lianjun emphasized the importance of scientific monitoring and research, which are strengths of Wanglang compared to most other nature reserves in China. Currently, two research projects in Wanglang are monitoring the impact of development. One focuses on tourism’s effect on amphibian and reptile species. The other, by a Duke University team, focuses on damage to the habitat from overgrazing and has an academic paper due to be published by September.
“What we can do now is to continue our close monitoring of the impact of both tourism and overgrazing on the habitat of the giant panda, so we can present our suggestions to the government,” Zhao said. “We can only depend on the government’s final move to strictly prohibit herding and stop other destructive activities in the reserve.”
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