Forest rangers in Mt. Gaoligong
Editor's note: The Gaoligong Mountains are frequented by a group of locals who joined actions in guarding the eco-environment here. Some of them used to be loggers, but now they can specify the species in the reserve like a botanist or zoologist; others used to be haunters, but now they are friends of the hoolock gibbons. And there is a cool female ranger who also contributed to the Gaoligong ecology.
Forest rangers in Mt. Gaoligong
Located in west Yunnan province, the Gaoligong Mountains form part of the China-Myanmar border, linking up the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in the north and the Indo-China peninsular in the south. Here, the typical alpine-valley landscapes are a complete eco-system that encompasses tropical, subtropical, temperate and frigid zones. As a result, the area features a high degree of biodiversity.
The Gaoligong Mountains are frequented by a group of locals who used to be haunters, loggers, housewives or farmers. After being turned into forest rangers, however, they have shouldered the responsibility of guarding the mountains. “Our joint actions increased the forest coverage and wildlife amount.” In the eyes of Lou Bihui, Cai Zhihong and Li Yuhua, all forest rangers now, changes have taken place in Gaoligong.
From logger to forest master
58-year-old Lou Bihui has been a forest ranger for 24 years at the Xiaoheishan nature reserve in southwest Yunnan’s Longling county, the southward tailing part of Mt. Gaoligong.
Lou started working as a logger in 1988. Having witnessed water-soil loss and animal-habitat reduction triggered by logging, Lou was really sad.
In 1998, Lou Bihui took the initiative to be a forest ranger. Guarding the 19,000-square-kilometer forest alone, he has been hiking through 30 plus routes to and fro in the nature reserve.
“I’d jot down what I saw in my patrols, including feathers, leopard wastes and scratches left by bears,” said Lou, who would photograph the wild plants and animal trails, seeking explanations from scientists.
Having used up quite a few notebooks and photo-storing capacity in his phone, Lou grew to be a master on guarding forest in the eyes of his workmates. “I’m not master at all,” said Lou with a shy smile, but the forest ranger to retire soon said he would talk to others on biodiversity protection, so long as he can walk and say.
“Living map” in the nature reserve
“I used to be a hunter, as well as a farmer,” said Cai Zhihong, a 51-year-old Lisu folk who is now a forest ranger at the Longyang branch of the Mt. Ganligong nature reserve.
Cai joined in a monitoring project for protecting the hoolock gibbons in Ganligong. “My job was to fight against fire and illegal hunting activities, while trailing the gibbons and gathering their wastes,” recalled Cai. As time went by, he got used to daily routines of the gibbons.
“Hoolock gibbons are 'singers' in the forest. At the sound of their singing, we’d try to approach them, but we’d also stopped moving at the end of their 'music' to avoid disturbing them.” Having been in contacts with the gibbons, Cai Zhihong has made friends with the gibbons. “While we were chatting under the trees, they were eating in the trees at times,” said Cai.
So far, Cai has worked as a forest ranger for 23 years, and he grew to be a “living map” in the nature reserve, specifying the details of the neighborhood. “At the sight of the cute gibbons, I regretted that I had been a hunter, and I expected the future generations to take care of their home in the stead of me.”
Female forest ranger
"I just picked up a Ganoderma lucidum in the mountains!" When we saw Li Yuhua in the forest of Dizhengdang village, northwest Yunnan’s Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture, she was walking out of the woods in a Dulong ethnic costume.
Li lives in Dulongjiang Township, the only habitation for Dulong people in China. "Our ancestors adopted rotation farming, and they never felled big trees and riverside trees to conserve soil and water," recalled Li, saying the idea of eco-protection has been part of the Dulong ethnic culture.
Thanks to local policy on eco-compensation, Li Yuhua became a forest ranger in 2016. "I was the only female eco-worker at first, and the bumpy path in the woods posed challenges to my physical strength." Now Li is as excellent as any of her male peer, going into or out of the mountains on her own. In 2021, Li was entitled as a most beautiful ranger at the national level.
She said as the number of forest rangers in the village increased, the villagers' awareness in ecological protection has also been raised. "Working as a forest ranger brings me a stable income, and it’s my duty to guard Mt. Gaoligong. Now that the ecology improved, my life has also bettered off.
Reporting by Luo Jie (CNS); Trans-editing by Wang Shixue