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Lu Zhi and the Giant Panda:
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An Olympic Highlight: China's Unique Wildlife-learn the real story behind the 2008 Olympic mascots
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Stories from Cuochi Village
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| Stories from Cuochi Village |
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| Story of Xia E'ba and Conservation Steward Program |
Tian Feng
Conservation Steward Program Manager
Conservation International-China Program |
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The morning light was shining through the clouds. The brightness lit up the remote the Red Horse Mountain. South to Red Horse Mountain, the cliff of blue-sheep-castle Mountain looked like the back of a hidden dragon among the hills. Near, sunglow dyed grotesquely-shaped rocks of White Deer Sacred Mountain (Xia E’ba) red. These two mountains turned into twinkling flames.
At the foot of Sacred Mountain, cooking smoke rose above the tent top among the horse racing camps. The herdsmen walked out of the tents lifting the big flags and prepared for the sacred mountain worship ceremony.
The living Buddha, wearing a yellow cassock, stepped out of the tent as well and greeted me warmly. I noticed he is also wearing a silver medal of the conservation steward program. That medal is specially made by the Three River Source Nature Reserve Management Bureau. It was awarded specially to The Friend of Wild Yak Association members who are in charge of wild animals patrolling and monitoring in Cuochi village. Breathing the cold air at 4700 meters altitude, joining the eco-culture festival in the amazing tent city, holding Living Buddha’s hands and looking at his medal, I couldn’t help to be deeply moved.
The grassland at foot of the White Deer Sacred Mountain, it is the place where all the conservation steward program work and accomplishments initiated.
In March 2006, when I first came to Cuochi village, first shook hands with Living Buddha, “Conservation Steward Program” was just a strange word translated from foreign literature. At that time, Cuochi was a boundless snowfield. And I just took over Conservation Steward Program work. I had no clear idea of how to generalize Conservation Steward Program in China, and had no in-depth understanding of the usage and significance of Conservation Steward Program to China’s conservation.
It was Zhaduo from the Snowland Great River Environmental Protection Associaiton Association who took me to the Three River Source region. He insisted that Cuochi was the best place for implementing the CSP program, because people here regarded tradition, loved animals, and they spontaneously took plenty of actions on conservation. They even established the Friend of Wild Yaks Association to protect this beautiful land. At the end, one of his sentences impressed me. He said that this land might be the only place in China which could be compared with Africa, and this was the only place you could see thousands of wild animals wandering around on grassland. Thereupon, I came! Along the way, there were numerous Tibetan antelopes, Tibetan gazelles and wild asses everywhere, which made people astonished and excited.
However, I still had no idea about how to implement the project and how to integrate Conservation Steward Program with China’s practice. On an extremely cold winter morning, Zhaduo introduced me to Ran Cang monastery to visit Living Buddha.
This place seldom has visitors. Herdsmen lived separately on wide grassland, rarely gathered together. Our visit was rare for the monastery as well. All the monks of the monastery rushed into Living Buddha’s room, curiously stared at us. I briefly introduced my willingness for implementing integrated community conservation and development program here. Then I repeated again what we defined about Conservation Steward Program.
After hearing my presentation, Living Buddha muttered for a while and responded to me. Maybe he would never imagine how his words influenced me and even impacted the implementation of Conservation Steward Program in China.
He said: “It is good for us if you come to implement your program, no one will refuse money! However, compared with money, we are concerned more about the rights, conservation rights. When seeing people hunting in our Sacred Mountain and mining gold in our river, we have no rights to stop them, I feel so distressed.”
I couldn’t give a proper reply and left the monastery without a word.
Our vehicle tramped over Red Horse Mountain and crossed iced Xia E’ba River, stopped at river side in front of the blue-sheep-castle Mountain. We visited another family. In that little simple house, the old host told us a story about Cuochi wild animals without stopping waving his prayer wheel. The hills around the blue-sheep-castle Mountain and White Deer Sacred Mountain were the habitats of blue sheep and snow leopards. Groups of blue sheep came down to riverside to drink water frequently. Because of the construction of grassland fences during recent years, the passage of blue sheep had been obstructed. Many blue sheep had been hitched by the fences and could not escape. Last year, this old host had set free more than 40 blue sheep.
There were many similar stories in Tibetan area. Actually, influenced by traditional culture, Tibetan people believe that the land belongs to the mountain spirit. Many wild animals live equally on this land together with human beings. Besides, there were many other invisible life patterns existing as well. Almost all the Tibetan people don’t kill. Killing around sacred mountain and lakes especially are infinite sins. As a matter of fact, biodiversity of these lands could be reserved because of such traditional culture. Conservation International conducted Sacred Land survey in 6 counties to find about 60 per cent of the territory can be regarded as Sacred Land.
When we passed the White Deer Sacred Mountain after seeing off that herdsman, the words of Living Buddha and old herdsman’s story echoed in my brain. An idea emerged in my mind, getting clearer and clearer.
In western China, there were many places like Cuochi. Land management and reservation rights belonged to government or nature reserves. Local communities had the willingness but no rights to conduct effective conservation. However, the capability of government is limited to cover such a wide territory. Participation of local communities is essential to reach conservation goals.
I couldn’t control my excitement the vehicle. I asked Zhaduo to pass my video camera to the project assistant, and asked him to record our conversation. I felt this was a very important moment which needed to be memorized. I told Zhaduo that I had a new idea of how to implement Conservation Steward Program in China. The focus of Conservation Steward Program implementing was to authorize the management and conservation rights to local community. The communities should turn to main force for conservation, and the roles of relevant government department should shift from the conservation implementer to the governor and supervisor.
The framework of Conservation Steward Program had been set up during that journey. That Cuochi trip had become the most fruitful one among my countless field trips.
After that, the models of Sichuan and Qinghai Conservation Steward Program had been set up, and had obtained remarkable outcomes rapidly. In the autumn of 2006, members of Cuochi Friend of Wild Yaks Association used their rights to drive away poachers. In Danba Conservation Steward Program site of Sichuan, villagers began to patrol mountains on month basis. Poachers dared not to access their forest anymore. Monitoring was also initiated in Sichuan Pingwu private forest, and a private nature reserve is now setting up a conservation plan as well…
This Cuochi horse racing festival was also an important component of Conservation Steward Program. It had been developed to be an Eco-Culture festival, which was aimed to promote the community recognition of Conservation Steward Program and revive traditional culture. There were many representatives from other Conservation Steward Program sites from Sichuan.
Standing at the foot of the White Deer Sacred Mountain, shaking hands with Living Buddha, though try to explain my thankfulness, I still felt hard to express myself properly. However, both of us were sharing the excitement and pride for Cuochi and the conservation management rights they gained!
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