Tibet Hiking Tour

"This trip may only last for fifteen days, but the experience of Tibetan cultural shock and memory of beautiful mountain scenery will last for a lifetime."

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Fauna and Flora

Over 5,000 senior plants, 39 of which have been listed as wild plants under state key protection, grow in Tibet. The region also boasts 798 species of vertebrates and 2,305 species of insects. Some 125 animals in Tibet have been listed as rare species under top government protection. They include Tibetan antelope, yak, snow chicken and black-neck crane. Tibet, which occupies one eighth of China's total area, has 6,400 kinds of plants including 40 kinds of rare species. It has over 1,000 sorts of herbal medicine, about one third of the national total.

Tibetan authorities also took steps to probe fauna and flora resources and strengthen co-operation with foreign countries. Comprehensive probe has been jointly conducted by teams made up of foreign and Chinese scientists on the species, distribution and life pattern of the wild animals in Qiangtang Nature Reserve of north Tibet. The American High Mountain Research Institute has a share in launching the Mount Qomolangma Nature Reserve; it signed an agreement for 12-year co-operation and invested tens of thousands of dollars in technical personnel training and establishment of development foundations. Japanese environmental protection research institutions have also expressed desire to co-operate.

The following articles will show you around the eighteen nature reserves of Tibet Autonomous Region. The nature reserves tell you their stories, and we believe the rare animals and trees, peculiar wonders and ancient relics must amaze you.

Wildlife Protection

To us humans most places on the ''Roof of the World'' are inhospitable but to wildlife it is a" paradise''. If you travel to Qiangtang Grasslands in north Tibet and Ngari Plateau in west Tibet, both places being 3,000 metres above sea level, you are more likely to meet with wild animals there than with your fellow creatures. Please read the following report by two newsmen on what they saw and heard.

When passing through the no-man's-land in north and west Tibet, the following scenes are often seen: wi1d asses ambled in twos and threes leisurely and sometimes they made a turn all of a sudden and dashed forward, antelopes, with beautiful recurved horns, galloped in pairs behind our car if as they would run a race with it; droves of gazelles emerged above the horizon in the distance; a blue sheep stood on the top of a mound motionless like a silhouette; now and then you could spot the dark brown back of a wolf moving among the tall grass...

If lucky, you can meet with thousands of wild asses or gazelles in migration. They would raise clouds of dust as they move along. We failed to see such a sight because, as the native who served as our guide said, it was not the right season. Of all these wild animals the most impressive is the king of plateau, the wild yak. Of a powerful build, a wild yak may weigh more than 1,000 kilograms with its whole body covered by long dark brown hair. The two horns of his are said to be so hard that they can overturn a truck. We saw through a telescope four of them sauntering in the distance.

In the Xainza Nature Reserve, dubbed ''giant panda among the birds'', the black-necked crane is categorized as an endangered species. According to past reports, fewer than 1,000 of them survived in the world, with their habitats being in China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. In 1992, foreign and Chinese experts, on an inspection tour of a habitat of the black-necked cranes in Tibet, spotted more than 3,000 of them and saw a chick being hatched.

Tibet has more than 2,300 species of insects; 64 species of fish; 45 species of amphibians; 55 pecies of reptiles; 488 species of birds; and 142 species of beasts. A total of 125 species of precious and rare animals receive key protection from the State, accounting for more than one third of the species under protection. The 34 most precious species of them have a total population of 900,000. The wild yaks, native to Tibetan Plateau, now number about 10,000; wild asses about 50,000 to 60,000; Tibetan antelopes 40,000 to 60,000; gazelles 160,000 to 20,000; takins 2,000 to 3,000; Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys 570 to 650; Bengali tigers 5 to 10. Besides, there are also a considerable number of bear, leopard, wild deer, wild sheep, rare birds, etc.

The Tibetan Wildlife Protection Association was established in 1991, with Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme as its honorary president and chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region Gyaincain Norbu as its president. China adopted a Wildlife Protection Law in 1991; subsequently, Tibet formulated regulations for its implementation and published a list of the wild animals that come under protection of the State and the Autonomous Region. Five nature reserves in which rare and precious animals receive protection have been successively set up: i.e., Qiangtang Nature Reserve for Wild Tibetan Yaks, Asses and Gazelles; Mangkam Nature Reserve for Yunnan Snub-nosed Monkeys; Xianga Nature Reserve for Black-Necked Cranes; Nyingchi-Dongjug Nature Reserve for Antelopes; Riwoge-Chamoling Nature Reserve for Red Deer. Within these reserves hunting of wild animals is banned. Besides these nature reserves, some counties also take measures for wildlife protection, such as hunting allowed in one of every four years and marking out of small areas for hunting, etc.

Wild animals are friends of us humans; to protect them is to protect ourselves. Tibetans, especially those living on grasslands and in forests, traditionally engaged in hunting. Now they are discarding the old idea that ''wild animals are ownerless, so who hunts them down may have them'' and work for their protection. The reappearance of Bengali tigers in southeast Tibet is a good example. In the recesses of the wooded mountains of Rdzayal and Meitog areas in south Tibet, people used to regard tiger hunting as a heroic act; consequently tigers disappeared long ago. However, in recent years there have been reports of tigers being spotted. In 1993, a tiger attacked a score of domestic animals in a few days. However, the local people only fired shots to scare it away but did not try to kill it. There are signs that about 10 Bengali tigers now are roving around this area.

Poaching is severely dealt with. In 1993, seven poachers were prosecuted for killing 50 Tibetan gazelles and given jail terms for two to six months respectively. Experts say that precisely because the existence and breeding of wild animals are well protected their numbers have increased by about 30 per cent in Tibet in the last six years.

It has to be admitted that though cases are fewer now, poaching still exists because of the exorbitant profits it promises. This has led to the decrease of the economically valuable animals, such as bear and musk deer. On this account, severe measures are still necessary. If the masses do some hunting and kill some protected wild animals because of their hunting tradition or to ensure safety of their domestic animals, there should be more education work among them. And with improved economic life, things will change. Moreover, natural changes in ecology and greater human activities also have led to diminished habitats of certain wild animals. This poses a big question for Tibetan wild animal protection in the future.

Brief Introduction

In a glen a short distance from the left bank of the Lhasa River, there is a village called Dangdong. Moving further on for half an hour, you will come upon a green valley overgrown with all sorts of trees and with a stream running through it. Now and then you could spot a deer, fox, lynx, hare or pheasant here and there.

Four years ago, a woman People's Congress delegate proposed that a nature reserve be established here. Her proposal was promptly accepted by the Lhasa Municipal Government. In the last four years, as a result of the protective measures, ecology in this small area has been getting better and better. There are now more trees and more birds and animals; the once dried up springs now are running again and the streams along the bottom of the valley help irrigate lots of the rice fields under the mountain. Dangdong villagers now taste for themselves the advantages of environmental protection.

That is one of the three small nature reserves under the Lhasa Municipality. Besides them, one fourth of the 1. 2 million square kilometers of Tibet has been demarcated as nature reserves of the autonomous-region or Slate grade.

Tibetan fauna and flora are characterized by variety and abundance. At present, 164 species are listed as protected rare and precious animals or plants of State grade, 16 of them as of autonomous - region grade. More than 40 species of the animals and plants cannot be found anywhere else in the world except on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Himalayas.

How to keep the all but primeval ecology of Tibet intact? Nature reserve is the logical modern choice, the chief way out for Tibetan environmental protection. In 1970s, Tibet started to demarcate areas in which hunting and felling of rare and precious animals and plants were banned. In 1980s, Tibet set about establishing nature reserves.

In September, 1985, the People's Government of the Tibetan Autonomous Region approved the establishment of six nature reserves of autonomous-region grade aimed at the protection of the ecological system of forests and the protection of the rare and precious wild animals and plants, i.e., Metog, Rdzayul, Bome Gang, Nyingchi, Paggi, Nyalam Zham, Gyirong Village nature reserves. In November, 1988, the Mount Qomolangma Nature Reserve was set up, which is of State grade and boats the highest altitude in the world, known as the "natural museum. Later, five more nature reserves were set up chiefly for the protection of rare and precious animals, of which the Qiangtang Nature Reserve, with an area of more than 240,000 square kilometers, is the largest in the world with the largest number of wild land animals in the world. The Mangkam Cakalho Nature Reserve, the world's largest dwelling area of Yunnan golden monkeys. These 12 nature reserves total 325, 300 square kilometers in area, accounting for 27.1 per cent of Tibet's territory or the size of Poland or Finland. And now the nature reserves in the Tibet Autonomous Region covers 38.19 million hectares, making up one third of the total area in Tibet. The Yarlung Zangbo Great Canyon and Qomolangma are the typical ones in Tibet. The Lalu wetland reserve is the largest natural urban wetland in China.

The region has applied to build another six nature reserves to bring the total area to 400,000 sq. km. and build a forest park in Nyingchi Prefecture.

Tibet, with its high and broad topography, uncertainly variable meteorology and shrouded mystery in its culture, has been showing the grandeur of "Roof of the World", and fascinating many people who love the nature. However, when you get close to it in warm sunlight, you will be excited to find that besides the snowfields and extending deserts, there are really bloomed meadow, luxuriant forest, swamps with cranes, and beautiful lichen on rocks and trees.

We shall be very grateful to professor Xu Fengxiang and vice-professor Zheng weilie .Their strenuous work with heart and soul present us a colorful world.

The Wild Flowers of Semiarid plateau & Alpine Region

The Wild Flowers of Semiarid to Semimoist Valley Region

The Wild Flowers of Semimoist plateau & Alpine Region

The wild flowers of Mosit Alpine Region

The Wild Flowers of Mountain Temperate Forest Region

The Wild Flowers of Mountain Warm-temperate Forest Region

The Wild Flowers of Mountain Subtropical Forest Region

The Wild flowers of Mountain Tropical Forest Region

Tibetan Species So Far Free from Extinction

No Tibetan flora or fauna have suffered extinction to date, an official with the region's environmental protection bureau said on Wednesday.

Many endangered species were under special state protection, he said. Red deer, generally considered by the international animal research community to have vanished, were spotted again in Tibet.

Bio diversity in Tibet was effectively protected, and biological variety was secure.

Statistics showed that there are more than 6,400 higher plants, over 2,300 species of insects, 799 species of wild vertebrates and nearly 125 varieties of wild animals under state special protection, accounting for one third of the state specially protected wildlife.

Establishing nature reserves is an important method adopted by Tibet to reinforce the work for ecological improvement and environment protection.

Since 1996, the central government has spent 368 million yuan (about US$44.3 million) in ecological construction in the Tibet autonomous region. Tibet has set up eight states and regional nature reserves, making one third of Tibet an enclave for plants and wildlife.

Local government has also set up series of organizations working on environmental supervision and law implementation. Local media and schools also participated in protecting Tibet's bio diversity.

(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2003)

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Jun/66249.htm

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