More money and efforts are needed to protect the wild camel
population in the Lop Nur area within Northwest China's
Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region, home to more than half of the world's
wild camel population, experts say.
Wild camels, or wild double-hump camels, only live in three regions
-- the middle of the Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang, an area
bordering China and Mongolia and the Lop Nur region -- according to
Yuan Guoying, an expert at the Xinjiang Research Institute for
Environmental Protection.
He
said the number of wild camels in the world was believed to be
between 790 and 890. An estimated 400 to 480 of them live in the
Lop Nur region. It is commonly considered to be a critically
endangered species.
In
1998, the Global Environment
Facility (GEF), which aims to fund projects and programs
addressing key global environment threats, approved a plan to build
a nature reserve in the Lop Nur region.
The project, which was completed in September, involved a total
investment of US$1.42 million, of which US$725,000 was donated by
the GEF. The reserve covers 78,000 square kilometers.
The investment also included 1.5 million yuan (US$181,000) from the
region's government, according to Zhang Yongshan, director of the
reserve's management center.
During the next five years, more work will be done to publicize
among residents living around the reserve the importance of
ecosystem protection, said Zhang Yu, vice-director of the
management center, at a recent two-day meeting in Beijing, held to
officially conclude the reserve's start-up phase.
He
said the center will plant grass and drill wells in the reserve to
improve the camels' habitat and set up an aid center to help
injured or sick ones.
Efforts will also be made to clearly determine the exact number of
camels in the reserve and how they move throughout the region, he
said.
John Hare, founder of the UK-based Wild Camel Protection
Foundation, which helped raise international funds for the
establishment of the reserve, said at the meeting there needed to
be more check-points and more staff in the reserve because of the
large areas it covered.
Currently, there are five check-points and around 40 staff.
Also, the number of animals the reserve can support needs to be
investigated, Hare suggested.
The foundation will continue to help seek foreign funding for the
reserve, he said.
"We should not be complacent (of the achievements made)," he said,
adding that the establishment of the reserve is just the beginning
of the process to protect the wild camel population.
(China Daily January 14, 2003)