Yunnan is China’s most biologically diverse province and so it is no surprise that we will have three Pride campaigns here – all in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Chinese government’s nature reserve management staff. The campaigns will be led by young, passionate government staff, and TNC will provide technical mentoring along with Rare. Rare and TNC will also share the costs of the training. Rare China Director Shiyang Li and I spent a captivating couple of hours discussing each site with TNC’s scientists.

Meili Snow Mountain must be the highest site at which a Pride campaign has ever been conducted – rising to well over 6,000 meters above sea level. The Nature Conservancy has been promoting conservation at this major Buddhist pilgrimage destination for almost 10 years. Mass tourism development, infrastructure and continued demand for fuelwood from the slow-growing montane forests all contribute to ecological degradation. The campaign is likely to focus on revitalizing the traditional beliefs and laws around nature conservation deeply embedded in Tibetan Buddhism.

[photopress:Meili_Snow_Mountain.jpg,full,centered]
Meili Snow Mountain, Yunnan

The Baima Nature Reserve is one of the most important in China. Its 300,000 hectares are home to 70 percent of the remaining Yunnan golden monkeys (as many as 1,400 individuals). But many of the 90,000 people living in and around the reserve do not accept its protected status, hunting is widespread, and there is a thriving underground market in bushmeat. This will surely be one of the most challenging campaigns in our first China cohort. It will promote pride in the Yunnan golden monkey and help to inspire the local reserve management staff to redouble efforts to engage the community in conservation.

Gaoligong Nature Reserve protects more species of primates than any other reserve in the World north of the Tropic of Cancer. It is home to eight primate species, including the highly endangered caped langur and the East hoolock gibbon. The only site with more of these two species is in northern Myanmar, where there is rampant illegal logging. The forests that these species depend upon are being degraded as cultivation of the medicinal understorey shrub, tsaoko spreads. The campaign will promote sustainable tsaoko production with key areas of forest to be set aside for conservation.

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