Yunnan continues to step up efforts for biodiversity protection

As a significant biodiversity cornucopia, southwest China's Yunnan Province has been stepping up efforts in protecting its wonderland where human and nature coexist harmoniously.

Classified as a first-class state protected animal, there are just about 300 Asian elephants in China, and they all live in Yunnan.

A key lab in the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences is set up to specifically study Asian elephants and the tropical rainforest they live in.

"We've done some in-depth investigations on the entire vegetation ecology of Yunnan's tropical rainforest, which has summarized the current situation of animals, plants and the whole ecosystem in the Asian elephant national park," said Yang Yongping, director of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Through dynamic monitoring and conservation studies on Asian elephants' population, the lab continues to promote the construction and scientific development of the Asian elephant national park.

"We've done researches on the relation between Asian elephants and humans, especially on the conflicts between them, Asian elephants' behaviors, habitat range, route, and how these are related to humans. Not only at home, we've also conducted studies on cross-border Asian elephants protection abroad," Yang said.

Yunnan is home to 151 kinds of wild plants and 242 species of wild animals, taking up 41 percent and 57.1 percent of China's totals, respectively.

It has played an important role in the construction of a national system for ecological protection.

"In face of challenges on biodiversity protection, sustainable development and ecological security, the lab has been exploiting data resource of Yunnan's biodiversity in an all-round way. Now, we're able to carry out comprehensive trace and even predict the dynamic development of biodiversity," said Lyu Xuemei, director of the key lab of data information on southwest Yunnan Province and cross-border biodiversity.

(Cover: A family of Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys. /CFP)