Protected areas are considered as important cornerstones for nature conservation around the world. Many of them, especially those in developing countries, however, cannot fully function to safeguard the diminishing biodiversity and exist only as “paper parks”. Threats for these “paper parks” are human disturbances in forms of various kinds of activities. Therefore, effective nature resource management cannot be achieved without paying attention to the welfare of the local communities in and around the parks.
Politically supervised under Wenchuan County, Sanjiang township locates to the southeast of Wolong Nature Reserve and has nine villages, two of which, Caoping and Xicao, share part of their land of about 300 square kilometers with the reserve. People in the two villages had many activities inside the reserve, including collecting herbal medicinal plant, bamboo shoots, and fuel woods, and sometimes illegal hunting. These activities all have various levels of impacts on pandas and other wildlife and their habitats in and around the reserve. For the effective conservation in Wolong Nature Reserve, it is as important to care about Sanjiang people as about people in Wolong and Gengda townships. Although this was recognized by the Wolong Administration Bureau and its Sanjiang Conservation Station, due to the fact that the two villages were under Wenchuan county governance, there was limited accessibility to the two villages in the mountains, and there were financial constraints, insufficient attention has been paid to the community development in the Caoping and Xicao villages.
During his summer field seasons in 2006 and 2007, Wei Liu made two trips to the Caoping and Xicao villages respectively. Besides completing his field work, he visited the heads of each village, Mr. Zhijun Zhang of Caoping and Mr. Shimin Wang of Xicao, and also the director of the Sanjiang Conservation Station, Mr. Dong Chen, from whom he got to know a lot about the livelihoods of the local communities. In general, the living condition in Caoping and Xicao villages were even worse than that in Wolong and Gengda townships. Both villages were up in the mountains and far away from the center of Sanjiang township, making it difficult for the villagers to sell their farm products and for the students to go to Sanjiang Central Elementary School. The situations of village elementary schools were similar to those village-level schools in Wolong and Gengda township, with very limited resources and poor housing and studying conditions.
Both village heads and director Chen hoped to receive more external supports and attentions to Caoping and Xicao communities to improve the local people’s livelihood and also to better meet the conservation targets in the surrounding areas. By November 2007 HELP received generous donations of RMB 5300 (about 720 US dollars) from Mr. Roger Hoopers from UK, HELP member Vanessa Hull, and Ms. Lei Pu from Sichuan province. With the assistance of Mr. Chen, Mr. Xiaogang Shi (current director of Sanjiang Conservation Station and HELP’s Sanjiang Committee Chair) and HELP volunteer Datian He, we were able to buy books, basketballs, and electronic heaters for the two village elementary schools and also gave donations to students from the poorest families in both villages (identified by the two village heads) to buy winter clothes and beddings.
Recognizing the fact that Sanjiang is far away from Wolong, HELP has since then been active on establishing a new site for future projects in Sanjiang. In early May of 2008, before Wei came back to Sichuan for his field work, HELP’s Sanjiang committee was formed. It is headed by Mr. Xiaogang Shi (current director of Sanjiang Conservation Station), and the other current members include Mr. Senlong Jin (current vice director of Sanjiang Conservation Station), Mr. Dong Chen (former director of Sanjiang Conservation Station) and the two village heads.
For more photos about Caoping and Xicao Villages and HELP’s work in Sanjiang in 2007, please click here. |
