I have yet to meet a Tibetan that cannot sing, dance, tell elaborate stories, or tolerate sub-zero temperatures in clothes that I would be comfortable wearing on a tropical beach at home in Bali. And their pride in their culture and traditions is overwhelming.

This afternoon we were given a fabulous welcome by the proud inhabitants of Yongzhi Village. Nestled 3,000 meters above sea level on a small tributary of a tributary of the Yangtze, and a two-hour drive from the district capital of Deqin, Yongzhi is the site of a unique Pride campaign aiming to help Tibetans adopt green architecture. The conservation objective is to dramatically reduce the use of wood logged in the surrounding slow growing pine and spruce forests.

The village elders lined the cobbled, ancient alleyways of the village offering a truly Tibetan greeting when we arrived. The old ladies in all their finery spun small prayer wheels, and the men held out both hands, palms up in welcome. Toothless smiles lined the way as the sun speckled through the ancient, sturdy, gnarled walnut trees surrounding the village.

Our small group, including Rare’s youngest board member, Ruth Yeoh, and her partner, Ken, as well as Jin Ligang and Shen Lei, who assist Rare with government relations in their spare time, and run Stonebridge China, a top notch consulting firm, had come to Yongzhi to see Pride in action. They were not disappointed. Rare’s partners, the District Environmental Protection Bureau and The Nature Conservancy, have helped the villagers start to build four new homes that will serve to demonstrate improved architectural practices, reducing wood use in construction and, most importantly, reducing the woodfuel needed to heat the houses during their 30-50 years of habitation.

The Pride campaign in Deqin District helps to root the new building styles in Tibetan culture and ensure that local people welcome the approach and spread the word. Yongzhi is the perfect village to start this transformation because it serves as a gateway to the area for thousands of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims who spend months in the region visiting shrines, holy mountains and waterfalls.

Yongzhi may be high on the Tibetan pilgrims’ list of places to go, but it certainly is not frequented by many foreigners. It felt like we were the first, and this, of course, was the perfect excuse for a party! Not that they needed one. We were told that the villagers have a party every night, with singing and dancing in their local community center.

Following a surprisingly tasty dinner, at about 9p.m. we were called to join the festivities. The community center was already full, with many families — from babies to grandparents — dressed in traditional garb. The head of the village called us to sit on the dais, atop red silk and welcomed us, “…on behalf of the 107 households of Yongzhi.”

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There followed an impressive, apparently impromptu repertoire of unaccompanied singing, led by the most beautiful young women and the strongest young men in the village. The Pride campaign came to fore with a hilarious set of comedy skits, getting laughs at the expense of stereotypical pilgrims, foreign tourists and local guesthouse owners. The serious underlying message was all about the merits of green buildings, with their superior comfort and attractiveness, indoor toilets (a true novelty in the village where until recently only one of these devices existed — imagine what that means in the depth of winter in a snow storm) and reduced woodfuel needs. The entire community was enraptured. Comedy is little used in Pride campaigns, and this was a great reminder for us all about how powerful it can be.

And then, to our naïve surprise, it was our turn! We huddled and urged each other to get down onto the floor and sing our favorite song or preferably several. Where were the stars of the annual Rare talent contests when most needed? Lamentably, pathetically, none of us was up to the task, or brave enough to entertain the expectant hoards.

Expectant silence filled the air around us. Happy smiles started to droop. We had to perform. Presidential leadership was required, and as usual at Rare, was forthcoming. Brett took a deep breath, and protesting to us quietly that he simply cannot sing, took the floor.

The hall was hushed, Brett took a deep breath, all around focused on the expected melody, staring intently at Brett’s face. And then, to everyone’s amazement, including mine, he performed a perfect handstand and paraded around the dirty floor upside down – twice!

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The crowd went wild. Young men puffed out their chests eager to meet this athletic challenge to their manly supremacy. Beautiful village girls swarmed forward to place decorative silk garlands around Brett’s neck, and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief!

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Following flights to Bangkok, onwards to Beijing, and then another two hours flying north to Yanji, and finally a two hour drive, Rare’s China Director, Shiyang Li, and I arrived in the small town of Hunchun (pop. 250,000). Cool wind blew down from Siberia and low mountains near the Jilin Hunchun Nature Reserve. A very surly receptionist did not greet us on arrival, given we had the rudeness to wake her up in order to check-in.

The reserve covers an area of 108,700 hectares and abuts the border of North Korea in the south and Russia in the north. The target of the Pride campaign, which is in the final stages of planning, is saving the Siberia tigers that live in the reserve. There are thought to be between three and five of this, the largest of the big cats, at the site, about one quarter of China’s entire population of 20 of these huge predators. There are about another 100 tigers on the Russian side and the reserve serves as an important corridor.

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The stunning landscape of Hunchun, China and North Korea in the distance.

The charismatic and incredibly committed campaign manager Jianmin Lang, known as Lang, made a clear and compelling presentation to us. He explained that the northern half of the reserve is the target for the campaign as this is the tiger’s habitat. Tiger activity has been recorded 196 times between 2002 and 2008. Camera traps have captured images of three different tigers, and tiger activities have been moving eastwards out of the reserve into other forest and land. Recently a tiger was caught on video by a military camera surveying the border.

The top threat to the tigers is being accidently caught in snares, vicious, simple wire traps, set by the hundred, illegally, in the reserve, to catch deer, wild boar and other species. It is thought that roughly one tiger per year comes to a sad, painful, slow death in the traps.

The Pride campaign in this area aims to dramatically reduce the number of snares being set, clean out the old snares, and engage the local communities as partners. Lang will encourage the community to patrol the vast area of forest and mountainside and keep wayward neighbors from indulging in hunting.

Lang is undoubtedly one of the stars of Rare’s first group of Pride campaign managers in China. He works long hours, is well organized and strategic, and has a great team supporting him from the staff of the nature reserve.

Crucially, Lang also counts on tremendous support from Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and their local officers, Ms. Liang, who is working with him day-in day-out on the campaign.

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Lang, Li Yong, Nigel and Shiyang with a billboard promoting tiger conservation

Click here for more info on Lang’s campaign!
The Shocking Case of Ms. Che Junxia

Che Jinxia is an attractive, friendly, 27-year-old mother who met us to share the traumatic tail of being mauled by an adult Siberian tiger. There have been four reported cases of tigers attacking people since the reserve was established. Three of the cases involved tigers wounded by snares. Che’s case is the only one involving a tiger that was apparently unprovoked and seems to have viewed the human being as prey. Below is her shocking account.

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Che Jinxia, survived an unprovoked tiger attack.

“Two years ago, on May 19, 2007, at 5 a.m., together with my husband, I went out to the mountain to collect wild vegetables in the forest.  We separated from each other and he went down the hill and I went up, alone.  I asked my husband to go with me but he wouldn’t.

The tiger was watching me for half an hour I am sure, but I did not realize.  I was wearing an orange coat and collecting plants under a tree.

Suddenly the tiger made a noise and I saw it about 10 meters away.  In one pounce it was right in front of me.  Its head was this big (she gestures with her hands held about 50 cm apart) and its hair was all standing on end. I put my hands up in from of me to protect my face and throat.  I am sure it wanted to bite my neck.  I remember the tiger’s face right in front of mine, just 30 cm away. The tiger bit my hands and arms about six times and scratched my arms. I screamed repeatedly and the tiger suddenly ran away.

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Marks the tiger left on Che’s arm.

My husband heard my screaming and came up the mountain, but when he arrived the tiger had gone. When it ran away I was afraid it would come back, and as soon as it had gone I started walking and then passed out.

I knew tigers live on the mountain but I had always been told they would never attack people, now I know that’s not true. Some people think that because of the clothes I was wearing it mistook me for a cow, but I am sure it watched me for a long time before it attacked, so I am not sure.

I spent two months in the hospital recovering. The bones in my arms and hands were broken.  Ever since then I have had nightmares, I will never go into the forest again, and I am even afraid walking around the village. I don’t go out at night.  I fight a lot more with my husband now and he says my personality has changed.  After this other people also went less to the mountain.

It is very dangerous living here, everywhere I go a tiger might jump out at me.  Maybe there are many more tigers than before.

Last week in the next village three cattle were killed and last night one of my relatives heard a tiger on the mountain.”

Che was clearly deeply traumatized. She said that she had wanted to get therapy, but that was not possible in this region — there are no qualified doctors. She talks with her husband and others and that helps. Her daughter hates tigers because one attacked her mother.

This was the only person who made negative references to tigers in all of the conversations over two days we spent in the villages. Our partners explained that tigers are generally viewed as very special, magnificent animals in Chinese culture.

Village Life

The villages around Hunchun and the reserve are tiny, rustic hamlets, with few young people who have headed off for more stimulating life in the towns or even to work in the factories of South Korea. It’s bitterly cold and snow-bound for about four months each winter. We were lucky to be visiting in spring. The trees were in fresh leaf, filling the valleys with a lime green hue, lush and full of life. It was hot in the sun-filled daytime and refreshingly cool at night. Later in the season the mosquitoes and flies will emerge, the valleys will be bursting with the late summer harvest, and huge piles of firewood will be set down in readiness for the winter.I interviewed the heads of two of the villages, two very different men engaged in remarkably different enterprises and making good livings:

Li Yong, Head of Guandaogou Village
Li’s main income is from raising frogs in a valley that he leases from the reserve. He has paid about $30,000 for the ten-year lease and harvests about 60,000 frogs each year, from which frog oil (a medicinal supplement like fish oil made from the frog uterus) is made and sold for about $600 per kg.  (Think about processing those frogs, by hand, for a summer job!)

There are 38 households in the village with 102 people, only one other family is in the frog business, the others are involved in bee keeping, cattle-raising, and logging. Several families are active in hunting for local consumption.

Wild boar are a pest and often destroy crops, foraging in groups of 20-40.  The government provides compensation.

Li supports plans to set up patrols as he wants to conserve wildlife.  He will select responsible villagers to participate in the patrols which will help to prevent other villagers from setting snares (he knows the families that do this), remove old snares, and stop outsiders from setting snares.

Snares are mainly set in winter. A man will set between 30 and 200 snares and inspect them every couple of days. If they are caught they are fined, the last such case was in 2007, with a $400 fine paid. He will select the families most active in setting snares to become part of the patrol.

Mr. Dong Zixan, Head of Xiacaomao Village
Dong Zixan was born in Xiacaomao village 44 years ago. His parents and most of the others in the village came to this site in the 1950s fleeing famine in Shandong Province.  When he was born there were 10 families and now there are 60 — with 230 people total.  Young people leave because it is boring in the small village. He also complained that life is very dull, and he only has to work about three or four months on the farm and the rest of the time is idle. I told him he looked healthy, strong, and stress free which got a good laugh.

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Xiacaomao village, where Nigel met and interviewed Dong Zixan.

His main income is from cattle.  He has 11 of them and sells the calves for fattening.  He has four hectares of corn and beans, and also collects wild vegetables in the forest. He earns about $700 a year from the cattle, and about $120 from the forest vegetables, and also sells some of the corn and beans.

There are about 400 cattle in the whole village grazing on about 400 hectares. In summer the cattle move out into the forest and this is when some are killed by tigers. He has never seen or heard a tiger, but his neighbors have.

Last year one of his cows was killed by a tiger and he is waiting for compensation. The government pays compensation, but it takes years and involves approvals at various levels from different agencies. Wild boars also destroy crops around harvest time, and he has been promised compensation for that too.

Two or three people from the village actively set snares, along with some outsiders. He knows who they are but it’s hard to catch them. Those who keep cattle hate the snares because cattle get trapped and die. Every year two to three cattle die like this. If he sees someone setting snares he reports it to the police or army.

Dong likes the idea very much of setting up village patrols to remove snares and prevent trapping.  Shiyang asked him if he could show us some snares.  He ran outside and came back with two old snares that had caught one of his calves. He also came back with a rusty old “break-leg” trap, now illegal in most countries, which he said was used for trapping wild boar. We set the trap and stuck a stick in it. It snapped shut with a terrifying thud. Dong told as that he has found much larger “break-leg” traps that he believes are intended for catching tigers, and he no longer takes volunteers out on patrols for fear they might step in one and lose a limb.

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Nigel with Dong Zixan holding a break-leg trap for catching wild boar

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The village of Sibogo in Malaysia, home of the “Sea Gypsies.”

A View from the Top

I left home in Bali in the early evening for the three-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s gleaming, modern capital.  It’s always a bit odd flying into their new international airport since it is completely surrounded by vast oil palm plantations, quite unlike any other major airport I have seen. This always helps remind me of the continuing need to build the economies of Southeast Asia, but also how much of this growth comes at the expense of biological diversity. Where Kuala Lumpur’s airport and verdant oil palm now stands there was once luxuriant lowland tropical rainforest, home to tapir, tigers and countless other species.

Meeting, Greeting, and A New Face Joins the Team

Ralph Dixon, who works closely with Ruth Yeoh, a member of Rare’s Board of Trustees who is from Malaysia, joined me for breakfast and an update on Rare’s program in Malaysia and the region. Thanks to support from Ruth and her family, Rare was able to launch a new program in Malaysia in 2008.  The first Pride campaign in the country is now underway in partnership with WWF Malaysia. The campaign aims to build community support for marine conservation in the region soon to become the Tun Mustapha Marine Park, located at the far northern tip on the island of Borneo, in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

The afternoon was spent with WWF Malaysia’s senior management team at their offices just outside Kuala Lumpur in Petaling Jaya, affectionately known as “PJ.”  I have yet to find a taxi driver who can find their way to this office without recourse to several phone calls to the ever-patient WWF receptionist.

Dato Dr Dino Sharma, WWF’s CEO, met me for a discussion about our ongoing partnership and potential for future collaboration. He and senior colleagues are keen to see more Pride training partnerships with WWF staff and sites around the country. In the short term these will have a marine conservation focus.

In the evening I had a lovely dinner with Sudeep Mohandas, his wife Padma, and their two teenage girls. After ten years with WWF Malaysia, currently serving as head of operations and deputy to the CEO, Sudeep has decided to join Rare’s team and will become our first Director for Southeast Asia. His family had lots of questions about the pending move to Bogor, Indonesia, where our regional office is located.  We look forward to having Sudeep join our team starting the beginning of July this year.  Meanwhile, his top priority is to recruit and train a successor and ensure a smooth transition at WWF.

Great Prospects: The Tun Mustaphe Marine Park

I was up at four am for the first flight to Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah State.  Here I met up with Rare Pride Program Manager, Hari Kushardanto, as well as Rejani Kunjappan, who leads WWF Malaysia’s national team of community outreach specialists. 

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Suzie, Rejani, and Hari.

Sabah is one of the region’s top tourist destinations, and it’s immediately obvious why.  The city is small, green, and sits beside a wide breezy bay with views of forest-covered islands.  Bars and restaurants line the seafront. A few miles inland mighty Mount Kinabalu rises to its peak at 13, 400 feet above sea level, with temperatures that plunge below freezing at night. The lower slopes of the mountain are covered in tropical rain forest. The state is dotted with forest reserves and is one of the world’s top scuba diving and ecotourism locations.

We jumped into WWF’s minivan, painted with environmental slogans, turtles and fish, and drove four hours north to the sleepy fishing town of Kudat. There we met up with Pride Campaign Manager Suzianah Ramlee (“Suzie”) and her colleague Sofia.  Both serve as WWF Malaysia’s community outreach officers for the vast area of ocean and islands north of Kudat. This one million hectare plus region is slated to become the Tun Mustaphe Marine Park.

Dynamite Fishing Destruction

We all gathered for a traditional Malaysian breakfast of nasi lemak (rice cooked in coconut with a spicy chili sauce, peanuts, boiled egg and fried anchovies sprinkled on top –  really delicious!), except Hari, who seems to prefer cake –  and lots of it — to get his energy up before a day out in the islands.

By eight o’clock we were in WWF’s speedboat, and with 200 horsepower engines behind us we sped out into the ocean, ably guided by Asri, WWF’s master scuba diver, and an equally skilled boat captain.

Our first stop, about 45 minutes from Kudat, was the home of Mr. Jamili, his wife and seven children, ranging from strapping young men in their twenties to a one-year-old still happily breast feeding. Friendly cats, fat in fish, quickly found warm homes on our laps as we chatted. 

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Jamili, far right, speaks to the group. Nigel, far left, listens in.

Jamili has taken the extraordinary initiative of personally protecting a wide area of ocean in front his beachfront home. This area sustains his family with fish which are put on ice and sold fresh in Kudat. It’s hard to say how large the area is that he is managing, but it looked to be over 200 hectares. 

The problem is that young men from nearby villages, and even as far afield as the Philippines, are keen to get their hands on Jamili’s fish, and their preferred method is using homemade bombs or cyanide. Throwing a bomb in the water kills hundreds of fish instantly, some of which float up to the top of the water and are quickly gathered. Their flesh is damaged, but they can be dried and salted and are then indistinguishable from fish caught normally. Cyanide is squirted into the water and stuns fish, making them easy to catch live, put into water-filled containers and then sold to the live fish trade, with high prices paid by restaurants in local towns, and even as far away as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong. The cyanide kills the reef and some fish and is highly destructive. Both bomb and cyanide fishing are strictly illegal in Malaysia, but enforcement is hard along the thousands of kilometers of coastline.

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Live fish, caught with Cyanide, waiting for sale.

Jamili’s efforts to keep out the bombs and cyanide have landed him in trouble.  Fishermen have threatened to kill him and he and his family now live in fear of retribution. The Malaysian government does not formally recognize his resource use rights, and the local marine police are stretched to help him. WWF Malaysia has done a great job of offering him moral support, starting to highlight his plight with the local government agencies. They’ve given him a camera so that he can photograph those he sees using illegal fishing techniques and this has resulted in the marine police confiscating boats and equipment.

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Jamili and Nigel  at the locally managed protected area.

The Pride campaign led by Suzie will further highlight the efforts of Jamili, and others like him in the area, enhancing their status in the communities, encouraging government agencies to better recognize these community-led conservation efforts, and building upon them to create larger locally managed marine areas. They will also organize meetings to get like-minded locals together to help them plan and support each other in their efforts, and assist them to become honorary wildlife wardens under a scheme developed by the government.

An Afternoon with Sea Gypsies and Pride’s Call to Action

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Sibogo, the village on stilts.

From Jamili’s idyllic beach we ploughed through the waves for another hour on the WWF launch to visit the other end of the illegal destructive fishing problem. 

The village of Sebogor appears in the distance to be floating on the water complete with a mosque. As we got closer we could see that it is entirely built on stilts, apparently with no connection to the nearby land. It is home to about 100 families of Orang Bajau people or “sea gypsies”.  These remarkable communities spend their entire existences living over the ocean, and occasionally dismantle their sturdy wooden homes and relocate to fresh and less depleted fishing grounds.  The people of Sebogor have an even more colorful past.  They are refugees who fled the fighting in the Philippines in the 1960s.  Many are now fully legal residents of Malaysia, but some are stateless with limited or no rights, prone to harassment and even deportation by the authorities. The village is also in the so-called “red zone,” where there is elevated risk of kidnapping and other threats – fortunately our WWF colleagues had not told Hari and me about this before we arrived, so we were happily oblivious to any danger!

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A resident of Sibogo

From a distance the village looks grim, ramshackle, and appears to be an extremely unpleasant place to eek out a living, raise children and grow old in the hot, salty humidity barely a stone’s throw from the maritime border with the Philippines.

I was surprised and deeply impressed when we tied up at their jetty and were greeted by one of the village elders.  Nearby four men, immensely skilled, were building the 10 meter hull of a boat, perched above the water on rickety planks. With no sign of plans, or tools other than a hammer, a power drill (they have a generator), and some chisels, the beautiful traditional boat was taking shape. They said they would sell it when complete for about USD12,000. Women were smoking dried sea cucumbers in a large circular tray.  Young men tended to buckets full of hundreds of abalone, soon to be sold to traders from Kudat for a handsome profit. The homes were spacious and airy, and many had televisions and radios, refrigerators and fans.

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Sea cucumbers being dried and smoked.

We were taken to the home of the village elder that had met us, and sat on the floor with his family. The bookshelves were full, and I noted thick tomes in English on financial management theory.  He explained that his older children had gone to university in Malaysia, and many in the village had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. My perception of this as a hardscrabble community living on the edge of extreme poverty was changing!  These are entrepreneurial, hard-working people, who manage to send their children to higher education, practice extraordinary craftsmanship with their boat building, and have a rich cultural life centered around their stilted mosque.

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The group talking with the village elder.

They also seem perfectly happy to use bombs and cyanide as their preferred fishing techniques. They spoke openly about this, even though it is illegal. When asked if they were concerned about declining fish stocks and damage to resources, they responded that if the fish disappear then they will simply move. We also know that the men who have threatened to kill Jamili probably live in Sebogor. The police very rarely come to the village.

From Sebogor we headed to the main town on the island of Banggi, where Suzie grew up. There, WWF has built a colorful environmental education center, open to all the local people, showing videos, organizing environmental events, and rallying an energetic and growing cadre of local volunteers, all wearing bright blue WWF T-shirts. 

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Nigel with the WWF volunteers.

Our final stop was a small island south of Banggi, called Maliangin, where we donned scuba gear and made a quick underwater tour of one of the better diving sites in the area.  There is very little scuba diving in Tun Mustapha. The visibility tends to be a bit low, and the overfishing and destructive fishing have eliminated most of the larger fish and damaged much of the coral. But we did see quite good coral cover and diversity, even though there was evidence of probable damage from bombing (characterized by lots of coral rubble and large broken pieces of coral) and cyanide (leaving telltale patches of dead, white coral).  I was struck most, however, by the fish life. While the diversity looked high, I didn’t see a single fish longer than about six inches – the classic sign of overfishing. With the large predator fish so depleted the ecology of the entire reef changes, and, of course, the local fishery suffers.

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Large fish for sale.

Campaign Manager Suzie is daunted by the challenge of reducing illegal fishing by the people of Sebogor and other nearby communities. But has a few cards up her sleeve. She grew up nearby and her father is a prominent imam. She is completely at ease with the local people who welcome her into their homes. 

That evening we discussed how she will use social marketing to begin to build awareness about the impacts and dangers associated with destructive fishing, and thereby start to change attitudes.  The village imams, wives and children of fishermen could all help to catalyze conversations about these issues, in turn leading at least some in the communities to start to question their heavy involvement in blast and poison fishing, and become more open to alternatives. 

Meanwhile, Rare has some homework to do.  Hari and I will find a regional specialist in alternatives to destructive fishing and get that person to Tun Mustapha by mid-April to help WWF put together a detailed plan to provide alternative fishing techniques to the local communities. Pride will open minds to different practices and as soon as that happens, WWF must be ready to help the fishermen adopt new approaches.

Plans for Pride, Plans Malaysia

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Back in Kudat, after a very good night’s sleep, we regrouped over breakfast to agree on next steps and encourage Suzie to make the next big steps with her campaign.  Then it was the long drive back to Kota Kinabalu. That afternoon, Hari, Rejani and I, met with Robecca Jumin, Suzie’s supervisor, and Ken Kassem, who leads WWF’s marine program in Sabah.  We brought Rebecca up to speed and agreed to keep in close touch with weekly phone calls in the months to come.  Frequent communication is key to head off any problems and challenges before they become overly serious.

We ended our visit by hearing from Ken about Semporna, a new site for WWF, where work is about to begin on a major marine conservation program.  The site includes world-famous Sipadan island, the top scuba diving destination in Malaysia, and many other extraordinary reefs and communities. Once again, overfishing and destructive fishing top the list of threats at this new site. Rare Pride training will begin there next year, together – we hope – with eleven other sites facing similar challenges.  Suzie’s pioneering efforts in Tun Mustapha will help chart the course that many others will follow and she will soon graduate from being a trainee to being one of Pride’s many alumni, mentoring other campaign managers across Sabah and beyond.
 

No related posts.

China’s political and institutional makeup is distinctive.  In China, Rare has a very close relationship with the government, and active sponsorship and endorsement from the Ministry of Environment.  To ensure that our program is well understood and appropriately focused in China we also have the Rare China Advisory Group. This group met for the first time in September, and will continue meeting annually. Members include; the new head of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) China Program, Dr. Zhang Shuang; Dr. Changhua Wu, China Director for The Climate Group; and Dr. Ma Jun, who has been called by some the “Rachel Carson of China” for his work mapping and monitoring water pollution across the country.

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The Rare China Advisory Group