Chinese researchers: Sanjiangyuan National Park showcases China's biodiversity conservation wisdom

Practices associated with Sanjiangyuan National Park, a swath of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau located in northwest China’s Qinghai Province, are useful reference for international biodiversity conservation efforts, Chinese researchers from the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and State Key Laboratory of Plateau Ecology and Agriculture, Qinghai University, note in a paper released by the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (BCAS, in Chinese), a think tank journal focused on strategic and decision-making research that is supervised and sponsored by the CAS. The following information comes from their report.

Covering 395,000 sq. km in the heart of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, including the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers, the greater Sanjiangyuan area is an ecological shelter zone and one of China’s priority biodiversity conservation regions. Sanjiangyuan National Park spans 190,700 sq. km of the area as of 2021, 132,500 of which are comprised of grasslands and 495.95 sq. km of which are forested.

Home to a wide array of genes, species, ecosystems, and unique natural landscapes, the Sanjiangyuan area features one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity among the world’s high-altitude areas. Known as the “wildlife kingdom on the plateau,” Sanjiangyuan National Park is home to 832 species of seed plants and 310 species of wild animals with large populations, most of which are unique to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

With young and sometimes infertile soil, weak resistance to erosion, slow-growing plants, and low production capacity, the ecosystems in the Sanjiangyuan area are extremely fragile and unstable, however. Human activities and resulting global climate change have been causing glaciers to shrink, mountain snow to melt, river runoff to be diminished, soil to erode, grassland to degrade, and land desertification to occur in the area as well.

The researchers that worked on this paper emphasize that it is necessary to prevent grassland degradation, restore grassland ecosystems, and protect wildlife habitats in order to maintain the integrity and natural features of the ecosystems and conserve biodiversity at Sanjiangyuan National Park.

The team has developed a grassland conservation framework that takes aspects such as ecosystem’s regulation, support, supply, and culture functions into account in order to promote biodiversity protection. The following measures have been implemented at Sanjingyuan National Park in accordance with the framework.

Configuration of protected, grazing, and cultivated grasslands is optimized and livestock carrying capacity is calculated in a scientific manner in grazing areas in order to achieve sustainable development of grassland resources. Modern regional grassland livestock husbandry production models have been created and implemented, and farming is also being expanded in grassland areas that are devoted to cultivation in accordance with local conditions.

Demonstration projects involving balanced management of grazing livestock and wild herbivores are underway in protected areas in order to achieve harmonious coexistence between people and nature as well. A compensation system has also been established in order to address the problem of uneven resource distribution in the area.

Tech innovation has been bolstering ecological protection and biodiversity conservation. Many breakthroughs related to new technologies that can be applied to wildlife monitoring, habitat assessment, ecological corridor planning, carrying capacity assessment, ecological restoration, high-quality forage cultivation and processing, and livestock production have been occurring, which makes it possible for precision farming and wildlife management to be implemented at Sanjiangyuan National Park.

First, new equipment and technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, tethered balloons, helicopters equipped with optoelectronic pods, satellite-powered remote sensing and monitoring, and automated artificial intelligence-powered perception, are utilized in order to monitor the distribution, population sizes, and habitats of wildlife in ecological corridors, which helps facilitate the creation of targeted protection plans at Sanjiangyuan National Park.

Second, wild Tibetan antelope, equus kiang, and gazelle distributions are mapped at the park, and models based on relevant environmental variables that are selected based on research and literature review are created. Ten species’ habitats, including those of leopards, are also assessed at the park via the Habitat Suitability Index – a theoretical value between 0 and 1 that factors in interactions between key environmental variables and is calculated by dividing current habitat conditions by optimum habitat conditions – and suitable migration corridors are designed for them.

Third, taking into account factors such as the various types of grassland vegetation, forage quality, seasons, animal population sizes, and nutritional requirements, the carrying capacity of the Sanjiangyuan area and Sanjiangyuan National Park has been determined to be 0.58 and 0.21 standard sheep units (SHU, with other livestock and wild herbivores being converted into SHU)/hectare, respectively.

Fourth, natural grassland allocation is optimized based on accurate estimates of alpine grasslands’ herbivore carrying capacities, grazing has been banned during the period when grass turns green, rotation grazing has been adopted, and forage is supplemented during the cold season.

Fifth, arable land, light, and heat are fully utilized in farming areas and agro-pastoral transition zones near the park in order to promote and facilitate mixed planting and interplanting of various types of forage grass and other plants.

Practices that have been implemented at Sanjiangyuan National Park comprise two development models: a demonstration scheme incorporating scientific research and major ecological protection projects and a coordinated development model integrating biodiversity conservation and people’s livelihoods.

The demonstration scheme entails promoting a biodiversity conservation model involving “research, monitoring, habitat suitability guarantee, and promotion of harmony between wildlife and the environment,” designing and implementing projects concerned with the balanced management of grass species and livestock, promoting the multifunctional grass management framework, and providing technology-powered services that inform national policy making and strategy planning.

The coordinated development model entails reducing pressure on grasslands and improving their ecological functions in order to provide more space for wild animals’ survival and reproduction, accelerating adjustment of animal husbandry industry structure and technological research in order to power the development of value-added livestock products, establishing an ecological compensation system, and using digital technologies to expand the national park’s functions.