Xinhua News Agency, Changchun, July 29, 2021.
Xinhua News Agency reporters Zhang Jian and Shao Meiqi.
In the first half of this year, the video of the wild Siberian tiger "Wandashan No. 1" going down the mountain and entering the village became popular on the Internet. And this is just a microcosm of the Siberian tiger's "return of the king".
The scenes of the Siberian tiger competing for the throne and the "family of three" of the Siberian tiger have also been monitored. Experts believe that through years of protection measures, China has greatly improved the habitat environment of the Siberian tiger and leopard, creating favorable conditions for the population of the Siberian tiger and leopard to reproduce.
On April 26, 2021, the Amur tiger and leopard monitoring and research center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration monitored the scene of the Siberian tiger competing for the deer. Photo provided by the interviewee.
The wild Siberian tiger is known as the "king of tigers". It is mainly distributed in the Far East of Russia and Northeast China, and is listed as one of the top ten endangered animals in the world. According to incomplete statistics, there are only about 500 wild Siberian tigers in the world. Monitoring data show that the number of wild Siberian tigers and Amur leopards in Jilin has increased from 4 to 6 and 3 to 5 in 1998 to 27 in 2015 and more than 42 in 2015.
Recently, Wan Zhongwu, a patrol officer of the Huangnihe National Nature Reserve in Jilin, has been very busy. He and his colleagues not only get up early and work late at night to patrol the reserve, but are also preparing for the upcoming central ecological and environmental protection inspector to protect nature. Every plant and tree in the area.
Jilin Huangnihe National Nature Reserve is located in the center of the historical distribution area of wild Siberian tigers, and is an important corridor for wild Siberian tigers to spread from Hunchun and Wangqing to Changbai Mountain.
In China, people are no strangers to the central ecological and environmental protection inspector mentioned by Wan Zhongwu. According to the "Central Ecological and Environmental Protection Inspection Work Regulations", the central government implements an ecological and environmental protection inspection system, and establishes a full-time inspection agency to carry out ecological and environmental protection inspections on party committees and governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, relevant departments of the State Council, and relevant central enterprises.
Statistics show that since the pilot inspection in 2015, most of the more than 237,000 ecological and environmental problems reported by the masses have been resolved or have been resolved in stages. In the first round of inspection and "looking back", a total of 3,294 rectification tasks were identified, and over 90% of them have been completed so far. A large number of ecological and environmental problems have been resolved, and inspections and rectifications have achieved remarkable results.
Not only the central government has inspectors, but the provinces also have inspectors from relevant departments. Several rounds of inspections have promoted the resolution of a number of environmental violations and deterred violations of laws and regulations in various places, especially in nature reserves. Some illegal ginseng planting, cattle and sheep breeding and other projects were cleaned up, and poaching activities such as trapping were also investigated and dealt with, benefiting wild animals such as Siberian tigers.
Wan Zhongwu said that in addition to the Siberian tigers that often wander around on many hills, there are now herds of wild boars, roe deer, and red deer in the forest. "This reflects that ecological and environmental protection measures have indeed played an important role." He said.
On February 17, 2020, a picture of a Siberian tiger monitored by the Siberian Tiger and Leopard Monitoring and Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. Photo provided by the interviewee
There is another special treatment for the Northeast tiger and leopard: China has specially established the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park (hereinafter referred to as the "Tiger and Leopard Park") for the Northeast tiger and leopard.
At the end of 2016, the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park system pilot and the national natural resources asset management system pilot work were launched simultaneously. Subsequently, the Haw Par Park State-owned Natural Resource Assets Management Bureau (hereinafter referred to as the "Hu Bao Park Management Bureau") was established, becoming China's first national park management agency with central authority, undertaking the tasks of "two pilot projects".
The pilot area of the Tiger and Leopard Park system is located in the southern area of Laoyeling at the junction of Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, with a total area of 1.4612 million hectares.
Zhao Li, director of the Haw Par Park Management Bureau, said that since the pilot program, the Haw Par Park Management Bureau has made every effort to promote the work of the central authority, and the responsibilities of the owners of natural resource assets owned by the whole people in the pilot area have been coordinated and integrated, and the lack of natural resource owners has been solved. Issues such as non-implementation of owner's rights and interests have opened up a new path in which important natural resource assets across provincial administrative regions are directly exercised by the central government.
In Hunchun City, Jilin Province, which is located in the core area of the Tiger and Leopard Park, experts from the Northeast Tiger and Leopard Biodiversity National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station check the status of biological populations in the Tiger and Leopard Park area in real time through the integrated monitoring system of space, ground and air every day. Big data is analyzed and at the same time provides protection for patrolling.
The informatization and intelligent management mode of "Internet + ecology" is one of the achievements of the "two pilot projects". Cracking down on illegal hunting and illegal hunting has been carried out on a regular basis, the standardized patrol mileage has increased from less than 10,000 kilometers to nearly 170,000 kilometers, and an animal rescue center has been established. At the same time, international cooperation has been strengthened, and a three-year cooperation action plan has been signed with Russia.
Alleviating the conflict between humans and wild animals is also an important task in the construction of the pilot area. The Haw and Leopard Park Management Bureau has compiled relevant compensation measures to expand the compensation for wildlife damage to the entire pilot area, and the compensation amount will be paid uniformly by the central finance. During the pilot period, the Jilin area accepted 4,433 cases of compensation for wildlife damage, and the actual amount of damage compensation paid was 5.6175 million yuan.
Feng Limin, deputy director of the Northeast Tiger and Leopard Monitoring and Research Center of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and an associate professor at Beijing Normal University, said that with the implementation of the national park system pilot, the population of wild animals in the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park has grown rapidly, including Amur tigers, Amur leopards, Many rare and endangered species such as brown bears and sika deer are on the rise, and the protection and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity are gratifying.
Wild animals such as Siberian tigers and leopards frequently appear and descend frequently, reflecting the trend of ecological improvement, but they also bring troubles to residents and communities near their habitats. Experts such as Feng Limin said that when the population of Siberian tigers increases and the range of activities continues to expand, the probability of Siberian tigers coming into contact with humans will increase. In 2020, the Tiger and Leopard Park Management Bureau released the "Community Guidelines for Responding to Human-Tiger Conflicts" to guide conservation workers and the community to use scientific methods to reduce human-tiger conflicts.
At present, relevant departments and localities in China are accelerating the promotion of methods for dealing with human-tiger conflicts, establishing relevant compensation systems and inter-regional and inter-departmental emergency coordination mechanisms, and speeding up to make up for the shortcomings in emergency response capacity building. While protecting wild Siberian tigers and leopards, we will do our best to protect the people Safety of life and property.