Forests
 

China contains a variety of forest types . Both the northeast and northwest reaches contain mountains and cold coniferous forests , supporting animal species which include moose and Asiatic black bear, along with 120 types of of birds. Moist conifer forests can have thickets of bamboo as an understorey, replaced by rhododendrons in higher montane stands of juniper and yew. Subtropical forests dominate central and southern China. They support an astounding 146,000 species of flora, as well as the famous giant panda, golden monkey, and South China tiger. In addition, tropical rainforests and seasonal rainforests in Yunnan and Hainan Island contain a quarter of China's total number of species.

The extent of deforestation over the last half-century has had massive consequences - most recently blamed for the extent of the appalling flooding through the Yangzi Basin during the late 1990s. China currently suffers from dramatically increased desertification in the north and west, faces water shortages over the entire country and has a forestry sector which is dramatically over-employed. Yet, although logging continues at a frightening rate, China's overall forest cover has risen from a low of about eight percent in the early 1970s to the current level of almost fourteen percent. This increase has been brought about by the "Green Great Wall" campaign and associated reaforestation efforts, currently focused at the upper reaches of major river systems such as the Yangzi, Yellow and Liao rivers, while anti-desertification projects focus on north-central China in Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. Sadly, the biological value of these replanted forests is far lower than that of the natural forests they replace. Replanted forest can provide timber for industrial and household use, but it does not adequately replace the role of natural forests in protecting soil, retaining water or supporting wildlife.

The biggest problem faced by China's forest sector is the difficulty of finding alternative employment for hundreds of thousands of loggers when the establishment of nature reserves or diminishing forest areas requires that tree cutting be stopped. Nowhere is this more urgent than in giant panda habitat . Giant pandas require vast quantities of bamboo , which grows as an understorey to the moist subtropical forests of mountainous Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. Without an upper storey of trees, bamboo will wither. The logging which has diminished the forest areas of these provinces has shrunk panda habitat as well.

A similar tale is that of the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey , endemic to western Yunnan. Some of the monkey's habitat is protected, but Deqin County, which became the focus of the issue, relies on timber for 95 percent of its government revenue - and thus for the salaries of its employees as well as for funding schools and health clinics. A wildlife videographer from Yunnan took special interest in the monkeys' plight and developed a television programme which was broadcast nationally. When word became known that logging activities might threaten some of the monkey's habitat, there was something akin to a national outcry. The Ministry of Forestry responded with concern and was naturally met with demands for compensation from Deqin County's government. To stop logging would undoubtedly bring economic hardship to the county, already mired in poverty of the most dramatic kind, and with few income options beyond the sale of its one valuable resource. To date, no long-term solution had been identified.

Grasslands and deserts
 

Together grasslands and deserts make up half of China's total land area. The immense and productive grasslands are largely concentrated in Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Autonomous Region, parts of Qinghai and Tibet. The natural wildlife they support includes three species on the verge of extinction: Przewalski's horse, the Asiatic wild ass and the Bactrian camel (the ancestor of domesticated camels). Others, including the Tibetan gazelle, are threatened by the influx of gold miners and truck drivers carrying goods to and from Tibet, who poach animals for food and trophies. Millions of domesticated sheep and cows are grazed on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, leading to severe depletion of the natural carrying capacity and increased threat of desertification. There is often direct competition between domestic animals and natural fauna. Herdsmen poison or trap carnivores, and sometimes destroy forests by burning or girdling trees to increase pasture area. The government has recently stepped up efforts to control the conversion of grasslands to pasture, but lacks enforcement and patrol manpower.

Deserts make up one-fifth of China's total territory, largely in the northeast. Arid steppes cover additional areas in the Altai, Tian and Kunlun mountains in the far west, a region blocked from the southwestern monsoon by the Tibetan plateau and from the southeastern monsoon by its distance from the sea.

Freshwater ecosystems

Freshwater ecosystems are of massive importance to China, and a huge percentage of the population is directly dependent on wetlands - marshes, rivers, and lakes - for economic production, flood control and, somewhat obviously, drinking water.

Seven of the most important rivers in the world begin in the highlands of western China. The Yellow River, Yangzi River, Lancang Jiang (Mekong) and the Salween rise in the east of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rise in the south. Downstream these rivers serve as sources of irrigation and drinking water, modes of transport and centres of cultural and religious importance for probably two billion people in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and throughout Southeast Asia. These rivers rise and gather strength from many of the thousands of freshwater lakes of the region. The black-necked crane breeds in marshland in Tibet and western Sichuan and winters in southeast Tibet, Bhutan, northern Yunnan and by western Guizhou. The bar-headed goose also breeds here.

China's northeast is the focus for much of the country's freshwater marshes . Two million hectares on the Sanjiang Plain of Heilongjiang Province are essentially a collection of shallow freshwater lakes and reed-beds where the Heilongjiang, Sungari and Wusuli rivers come together. Jilin, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia all share these ecosystems. One of the most well-known wildlife areas in this ecosystem is Zhalong Nature Reserve , a 2,000-square-kilometre area which was created in 1979 to protect breeding areas for the red-crowned crane, and other wintering migrants. These marshes are also of great value for reed production, the bulk of which is turned into pulp for paper. Waterfowl and reed production can usually coexist, at least at present levels, so this is a useful confluence of conservation and economic uses.

China's freshwater lakes include the country's best-known wetlands: Jiangxi's Poyang Hu and Hunan's Dongting Hu. Dongting Hu , China's second largest fresh-water lake, is vitally important for wildlife, including the highly endangered Yangzi river dolphin and Chinese sturgeon, as well as more wintering wildfowl. Current threats include increasing siltation and land reclamation , which have caused the lake to shrink to almost half its size since 1949, as well as water pollution from nearby Yueyang city. Poyang Hu is a similar complex of small lakes and marsh areas which fluctuate seasonally; summer floods cede to fertile agricultural land being exposed in autumn, attractive both to farmers and visitng birds. In recent years, however, some of Poyang's larger lakes have also been drained at the end of autumn, leaving waterfowl with inadequate shallow land on which to feed. The importance of Poyang Hu is hard to overstate, as the lake provides wintering habitat for almost the entire world population of two hundred Siberian cranes , and as many as five hundred thousand birds may be on Poyang Hu at any one time during the winter months.

Saltwater lakes and coastal wetlands

About half of China's lakes are saline and are important breeding grounds for waterfowl . Most are concentrated in northwest China on the inland drainage systems of the North Tibetan Plain and in the Zaidan basin. The largest is Qinghai Hu, a 4,426-square-kilometre reserve which attracts thousands of birds each summer, including cormorants, great black-headed gulls, bar-headed geese, and pied avocets. Similarly, the Tarim River basin in Xinjiang supports one of the largest breeding populations of black stork in China. The Ordos plateau area of Inner Mongolia as well as the Xinjiang's Taolimiao-Alashan Nur (lake) support breeding sites for the endangered relict gull . Most of these lakes and marshes fluctuate seasonally and are threatened by increased diversion of water for human use, including household and agricultural uses.

China's coastline is approximately 18,000 km long, extending from the Bohai Gulf which freezes in the winter to the tropical waters of the South China Sea. Coastal wetlands are important as fuel stops for waterfowl on the migratory route between Siberia and Australia. Chongming Island in the Yangzi River Delta near Shanghai - China's largest city and one of its fastest growing regions - is vital for these migrants.

Threats
 

As any traveller to China would confirm, environmental conservation enjoys a low priority in a country rushing to throw off years of economic stagnation by uncontrolled development. Yet when habitats vanish, the species they support become extinct too. Currently, China's endangered flora and fauna includes the familiar, endemic and scarce giant panda; the South China tiger; Yangzi river dolphin; crested ibis; and a host of other plants and animals. Of the above animals, the giant panda is most populous with approximately a thousand individuals left in the wild, while the entire known population of crested ibis is perhaps 45, and Yangzi dolphins number less than 20. Other endangered animals include the snow leopard, which depends on western China for over half its range; the Asian elephant, a resident of Xishuangbanna near Laos and Vietnam; the golden monkey; the Yangzi alligator; and migratory species such as the red-crowned crane and black-necked crane.

Wildlife is threatened in China for a vast array of reasons, but most are an outgrowth of human economic activities. Intensive cultivation of land for food production has led to diminishing areas of wildlands and diminishing habitat for wildlife, just as reclamation of wetlands for agriculture, and construction of power stations and water conservancy have diminished the area of freshwater ecosystems. Demand has outstripped growth in supply for virtually all natural resources , including timber, animal products and wild plants. Pollution , a consequence primarily of the massive economic growth of the current reform period, has damaged habitats and diminished the carrying capacity of water resources. Wildlife has diminished because it is not considered a productive use of land, especially when compared with agriculture, energy generation, industrial development and waste disposal.

Conservation
 

Under the circumstances conservation is extremely difficult, though there has been progress made over recent years. In numbers and area covered, China's nature reserves have expanded with great speed. From the establishment of Dinghushan Nature Reserve in Guangdong Province in 1956 until 1978 only 34 reserves were created, but since then the numbers have grown exponentially. At present there are over seven hundred nature reserves in the country covering almost six percent of the nation's territory. The Ministry of Forestry is responsible for over five hundred of these, with others being under the National Environmental Protection Agency, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Oceanic Administration.

These agencies have collaborated with a variety of external organizations over the past sixteen years, beginning in 1980 with the joint World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Ministry of Forestry giant panda conservation programme. Since then, the Wildlife Conservation Society, International Crane Foundation and Wetlands International have also supported conservation activities, while the Ford Foundation addresses the interaction of rural development and conservation. UNESCO counts ten Chinese reserves among its international network, with the Chinese MAB Committee listing a further ninety as part of their domestic projects. A variety of international funding agencies provide technical and financial assistance to China for conservation, including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and a number of bilateral donors.

While the government has shown interest and growing commitment to conservation in recent years, the most encouraging initiatives are those that have taken place in the informal sector among concerned citizens . The national campaign to save the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey, was the first of its kind in China, and several "non-governmental organizations" now exist. Though few would count as pressure groups in the Western sense, they indicate the growing space for public debate over the environment. Environmental television and radio programmes abound on China's airwaves, further fuelling conservation awareness. Most significantly, younger, technically trained specialists are taking over responsibility for official conservation programmes, and, while often subordinate to the anachronistic policies of superior political appointees, this new generation is developing influence in key areas around the country.

Though the pressures that have led to the degradation of China's environment and wildlife have, if anything, increased in recent times, the strength of China's conservationists has grown as well. Conservation is a process, and it is difficult to imagine a day when wild resources in China are no longer threatened by a combination of necessity and the desires of its population. There is reason to believe, however, that the increased awareness and commitment of China's citizens and the increased ability of its officials will gradually improve the balance