The overall anti-adversity ability of Tibetan antelopes is still very fragile. Human disturbance or other disturbances, the expansion of roads and towns, the development of animal husbandry, and the spread of net fences have further reduced the habitat area of Tibetan antelopes. Therefore, the protection of Tibetan antelope population and Tibetan antelope habitat should continue to be strengthened.
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In recent years, China’s biodiversity conservation work has achieved remarkable results. On October 20, 2022, Chen Ruifeng, member of the Standing Committee of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee and secretary of the Xining Municipal Party Committee, introduced in a collective interview at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that thanks to ecological protection, Qinghai’s “plateau spirit” Tibetan antelope has grown from more than 10,000 to 7. Thousands only.
Tibetan antelope, also known as Tibetan antelope, long-horned sheep, and one-horned sheep, mainly inhabits desert grasslands, desert meadow grasslands, alpine grasslands and other environments at an altitude of 4000-5500 meters in Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang.
Wu Xiaomin, a researcher at the Shaanxi Institute of Zoology (Northwest Institute of Endangered Animals) and a member of the expert group of the Endangered Species Scientific Committee of the People’s Republic of China, introduced to Jiemian News that the Tibetan antelope is the flagship species of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In the middle of the food chain, they support the survival of about 10 large carnivores and are the food source for these large carnivores, such as wolves, brown bears, etc.
“The ecosystem seems to be macroscopic and huge, but in fact every species in it is interlinked with the environment. The Tibetan antelope is the most abundant ungulate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and its migration behavior outlines the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The outline of the ecosystem.” Wu Xiaomin said.
In addition to its extremely important ecological value, the economic value of Tibetan antelopes is also very high. Their fur, skin, meat and horns are extremely precious, especially Tibetan cashmere. It is made from about 300g of Tibetan antelope cashmere, each priced at 20,000-30,000 US dollars. Since the 1980s, people have also started to hunt Tibetan antelopes frantically while entering Hoh Xil to find treasures and make a fortune.
Some experts estimate that at the beginning of the 20th century, the total number of Tibetan antelopes living on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau exceeded 1 million. In 1999, after 10 years of investigation, Dr. George Beals Schaller, an expert from the International Wildlife Conservation Society, believed that there were only 75,000 Tibetan antelopes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, less than one-tenth of the original.
In order to save the Tibetan antelope, the Chinese government has implemented comprehensive protection actions. In 1981, China acceded to the “Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora” (CITES), prohibiting all trade activities related to Tibetan antelope and its products. In 1988, the “Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Wildlife” was promulgated, and the Tibetan antelope was identified as a national first-class protected animal.
China has successively established seven Tibetan antelope nature reserves, including the Qiangtang National Nature Reserve in Tibet, the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in Qinghai, the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve in Qinghai, and the Altun Mountain National Nature Reserve in Xinjiang. In the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Project, which was started in 2001, 33 animal passages were specially built for Tibetan antelope and other species. In 2005, the State Forestry Administration issued the “National Tibetan Antelope Protection Project Construction Plan (2005-2015)”.
“In recent years, through the unremitting efforts of various departments such as the State Forestry and Grassland Administration, the standardization, institutionalization and information management of protected areas have been further improved, the management system and mechanism have been gradually improved, the management and protection forces have been continuously strengthened, and the level of scientific research and monitoring has been gradually improved. The protection according to law has continued to increase, the habitat conditions have continued to improve, and the protection of Tibetan antelope has achieved remarkable results.” Wu Xiaomin said.
In August 2021, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration announced that in recent years, with the strengthening of my country’s ecological protection and efforts to combat poaching, the number of Tibetan antelopes in my country has increased from less than 70,000 in the 1980s and 1990s to about 100,000 at present. 300,000. When the IUCN updated the list in 2016, the Tibetan antelope was downgraded from endangered to near endangered. Tibetan antelope has become one of the successful cases of human participation in species protection.
Wu Xiaomin introduced that the so-called “downgrade” of Tibetan antelope refers to the “downgrade” of its threat level, not the reduction of its protection level. “The International Union for Conservation of Nature is a global conservation organization founded in 1948, with more than 1,400 government and non-government members. So far, 120,372 species have been assessed around the world, and the “IUCN Red List of Threatened Species” has been formed.
Wu Xiaomin introduced that at present this work is done by biologists from all over the world, and the evaluation standards are also improved year by year. A series of quantitative standards are adopted to classify species into extinct, wild extinct, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near-threatened, and no species. There are nine categories: dangerous, lack of data, and unassessed. But the assessment is not at the global level but at the regional level, supplemented by the use of the regional extinction scale. These grades represent species danger levels in descending order, and are obtained by comprehensively considering factors such as population decline, geographic distribution, fragmentation, fluctuation, and extinction risk, and are analyzed on the basis of all available scientific data.
Wu Xiaomin said that in fact, many countries in the world will formulate wildlife protection laws and regulations and protection lists or lists that are in line with their national conditions. Since 1989, my country has successively promulgated relevant laws and regulations on wildlife protection, including the Wildlife Protection Law and the List of Wildlife under National Key Protection. On February 1, 2021, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the release of a new “List of National Key Protected Wild Animals”, of which Tibetan antelopes are still reserved as national Class I protected animals, and have not announced their downgrade protection.
As a witness who participated in the adjustment of the list, Wu Xiaomin said that the overall anti-adversity ability of Tibetan antelopes is still very fragile. Human interference or other disturbances, the expansion of roads and towns, the development of animal husbandry, and the spread of net fences have further reduced the Tibetan antelope. habitat area. Therefore, the protection of Tibetan antelope population and Tibetan antelope habitat should continue to be strengthened.
He believes that for the protection of Tibetan antelope populations, it is still necessary to strengthen the protection and restoration of ecosystems, including promoting the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand, and strengthening the protection of natural resources, biodiversity, and the protection of damaged natural ecosystems and natural relics. Restoration and improvement of forest and grassland fire prevention, pest control and wildlife epidemic prevention and control systems are carried out.
Tibetan antelope populations in Qinghai Province are mainly distributed in Sanjiangyuan National Park. On October 12, 2021, at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, my country officially announced the establishment of the first batch of national parks such as Sanjiangyuan. The construction of the national park system is of great significance to the protection of Tibetan antelope populations.
Wu Xiaomin introduced that the national park integrates all kinds of nature reserves at all levels and surrounding areas with high ecological value, breaks the division of departments, local interests and administrative systems, effectively solves the problems of overlapping and fragmented management, and implements the most stringent regulations. Ecological Protection.
The Sanjiangyuan area is the source of the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Lancang River, and is known as the “Chinese Water Tower”. Wu Xiaomin said that the Sanjiangyuan National Park integrates multiple nature reserves that originally belonged to different departments and different administrative regions. In this 190,000-square-kilometer park, there are 16,000 large and small lakes, with a total lake area of 2354.25 It has a wetland area of 73,300 square kilometers, nearly 2,400 square kilometers of snow-capped mountains and glaciers, and 200 billion cubic meters of glacier resources. After the establishment of Sanjiangyuan National Park, more than 90% of the habitat has been protected, so that the activities, reproduction and migration (migration) channels of Tibetan antelope and other wild animals have been systematically protected, and the ecological process has become more complete.
Wu Xiaomin said that in a deeper sense, a national park is a natural and cultural form aimed at forging the future human living space. It has the functions of scientific research, education and recreation, and will provide the public with more opportunities to know the Tibetan antelope population. . It not only satisfies the needs of the people for a beautiful ecological environment, but also is conducive to the protection and management of wild animals such as Tibetan antelope.