Although the week at Tiaozini involved a packed schedule, I did manage to steal away for an hour to the mudflats for the incoming tide. Watching a flock of Great Knot with Eurasian Curlew, Oystercatcher and Saunders’s Gulls overhead as the sun dropped behind me was a memorable experience. I attempted to capture at least some of the magic by recording a soundscape. Put on your headphones and transport yourself to the Yellow Sea coast!
Tag: China
Reform of Environmental Governance in China Should Be Good News for Wildlife
Anyone who has worked in China will know that the bureaucracy can be stifling. At a minimum it can lead to serious time delays to even the most straightforward tasks. At its worst, it can prevent action altogether. Part of the problem, on the environment at least, is that the responsibilities for various environmental issues have been fragmented across many different government departments.
One official remarked that it used to take 12 official stamps from different government authorities to enable a decision to be taken about policies related to pilot National Parks. And often these multiple authorisations are handled in series, which can seem to take forever.
All that is set to change thanks to a sweeping reform of environmental governance that was proposed by the State Council (China’s Cabinet) and endorsed by the National People’s Congress (the country’s parliament) in March 2018.
Here are the key points you need to know:
- On 17 March 2018, the National People’s Congress of China approved a State Council proposal to reorganise the way the environment is governed
- Two new ‘super-ministries’ were created to consolidate the management of environmental issues – the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE)
- The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) will be the ‘owner’ of China’s natural resources; it will replace the Ministry of Land & Resources, State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the national surveying and mapping bureau, and will gain authority over urban and township planning, as well as management of water, grasslands, forests, wetlands, and maritime resources;
- The new Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) will take on responsibility for the old Ministry of Environmental Protection’s portfolio as well as climate change and greenhouse emissions policies, which were previously under the National Development and Reform Commission, and anti-pollution tasks, previously the responsibility of the ministries of land and of water resources.
- The reforms also expand the remit of the State Forestry Administration by creating a State Administration for Forestry and Grassland (SAFG), reporting to the MNR. As well as taking on the responsibilities of the old State Forestry Administration, the SAFG will gain some responsibilities that belonged to six former government departments, including management work on nature reserves, scenic spots and geological parks
- The main responsibilities of the new SAFG will be overseeing and managing the development and protection of forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts and wildlife, as well as organizing ecological protection and restoration, afforestation and the management of national parks.
- In the process of reform, some existing government departments, such as the State Oceanic Administration, will be disbanded, while others, such as the Ministry of Water Resources will see their mandate reduced
A major positive is that the management of all protected areas will now be in one organisation (State Administration for Forestry and Grassland) with monitoring and evaluation by the MNR. This should help to streamline decision-making and reduce the risk of cross-departmental in-fighting.
The reorganisation is the fourth time in three decades that China’s environmental agency (currently the Ministry of Environmental Protection) will see its remit expanded in a new department, highlighting the growing priority of the environment in Chinese policy-making.
The changes are seen as a step forward towards implementing the much-quoted concept of “ecological civilisation”; the 2015 Master Plan for ecological civilisation argued that “natural resources should be properly valued,” and “holistically managed”. It also stipulated that economic activities should not result in ecological burdens that exceed the capacity of the environment to manage. Under the Master Plan, the institutional processes to deliver “ecological civilisation” were due to be in place by 2020 and it seems this reform puts the Chinese government on track.
From conversations here with officials and academics it appears that there is overwhelming support for the changes and an expectation it will lead to better, more enlightened and faster policymaking on the environment. A good early test of the new arrangements will be the anticipated publication of the revised list of specially protected species under the Environment Protection Law. Despite years of review, agreement has not yet been reached among the different responsible departments. Now, any (former cross-departmental) disagreements should be much easier to resolve. As always, the proof is in the pudding, so we’ll be watching closely to see how the new arrangements work in practice.
This summary was compiled from discussions with officials and academics, media articles and from resources provided by China Dialogue.
Hunting in Russia: The “Under The Radar” Threat To The East Asian Australasian Flyway?
Zhu Bingrun (Drew) is one of a new generation of brilliant Chinese ornithologists. These young scientists are adding a great deal to our knowledge about migratory birds in China, keen to collaborate with international experts and part of a growing network of young people in this vast country who want to study, and protect, wild birds.
I first met Drew when we worked together on the 2013 survey of Jankowski’s Bunting in Inner Mongolia. Since then he has been working on his PhD in the Bohai Bay, focusing on the BLACK-TAILED GODWIT. As well as painstaking observations, Drew’s research has involved fitting satellite tags to learn more about the migration, breeding grounds and the most important stopover sites where these godwits rest and refuel. This information is vital to inform conservation efforts.
This year, Drew has spent all spring at Nanpu in coastal Hebei Province, studying the Black-tailed Godwits. One part of Drew’s studies was to catch, measure and fit rings to several Black-tailed Godwits to help gain data not available from viewing alone. Not surprisingly, they are difficult to catch. After much effort, and many attempts, three godwits were caught and tagged by Drew this spring. Resting on the shoulders of these three birds were not only satellite tags but also Drew’s hopes of finding out where they bred and the routes they took to reach the breeding sites.
On 1 May 2016 Drew captured and banded a single male Black-tailed Godwit. The usual metal ring was supplemented with colour flags (blue over yellow) with the individual engraving “H03” which would enable scientists and birders to identify this individual in the field. The bird was also fitted with a GPS transmitter, allowing Drew to monitor its location on a near real-time basis and potentially showing, for the first time, the migration route and breeding grounds.
After tagging, the bird was released and the satellite data showed that, just like hundreds of thousands of other shorebirds, it spent the next two weeks feeding up in the Nanpu area, preparing for its northward migration. On 17 May it began its journey north. On 18 May the last signal was received, on the border of Inner Mongolia. Three days later, on 21 May, two photos were uploaded to Facebook showing a Black-tailed Godwit with blue and yellow flags and a satellite transmitter. The bird had been shot, killed and proudly shown off by a hunter in Sakha, Russia.
Not surprisingly, Drew was devastated when Russian researcher, Inga Bystykatova, alerted him to the photos. “H03”, one of only three birds tagged this Spring, was gunned down for sport almost as soon as it left China.
Recently, much has been written about the threats faced by shorebirds along the East Asian Australasian Flyway (EAAF), most of which has rightly focused on habitat loss in the Yellow Sea ecoregion. At least one-fifth of the waterbird populations of the EAAF are threatened, the highest proportion among the global flyways. The most endangered, and most well-known, is the Spoon-billed Sandpiper but this species is far from alone. In the last decade 12 species of shorebird have been moved onto the lists of global conservation concern, and strong declines are suspected in others in the region. In past 50 years, 51% of intertidal habitat in China has been converted to urban, industrial and agricultural land. The remaining areas are affected by numerous on-going and planned land conversion projects. The conversion of an estimated 578,000 hectares of coastal wetlands has recently been approved. On the positive side, there is a huge conservation effort, involving the East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership, BirdLife International and many others, focused on trying to protect the remaining areas of intertidal mudflats and there are signs that this effort is making progress.
However, there are other threats. And what is much less well-known is the scale of hunting in Russia. There are apparently 2 million hunters in Russia. There is a tradition of hunting Whimbrel – they taste good and hunting this species is a special focus of hunters on coastal spits, particularly in autumn. However, hunters don’t just stick to Whimbrel and often other shorebirds, such as sandpipers, curlews and godwits, are taken when they have the opportunity, even though some of these species are officially protected. Enforcement of the law in remote eastern Siberia is almost non-existent.
When I asked Drew about this, his reply was honest, thoughtful and hard-hitting:
“China takes the blame for a long time for the population decline of migratory birds. That is fine – we have a problem and we are changing. But conservation of migratory birds is never a single country’s duty. As the major breeding ground, Russia keeps a very low profile but slaughters God knows how many birds each year.”
It is clear that there is an urgent need, in parallel to the efforts to save the remaining habitat along the Yellow Sea ecoregion, for more awareness and more constructive communication with hunters in Russia. It is, of course, impossible to stop hunting of wild birds altogether, at least in the short term. However, with better communication, it should be possible to ensure the hunters are aware of those species that are endangered and to encourage restraint when these species are encountered.
As Drew says, protecting migratory birds along the East Asian Australasian Flyway is the responsibility of all nations in the region, from New Zealand and Australia in the south to southeast Asia, China and Russia. It is only by protecting birds on the wintering grounds, the breeding grounds and the key stopover sites that the health and viability of the East Asian Australasian Flyway will be maintained.
As for “H03”, contact with the hunter in Russia has been established and he has agreed to send back the bird, complete with transmitter, to Drew. Let’s hope “H03” did not die in vain and that he is the catalyst for a new conservation effort focusing on dialogue with hunters in Russia.
Siberian Bush Warbler
On Saturday I joined leading China expert, Paul Holt, and visiting Chris Gooddie (of “The Jewel Hunter” fame) for a visit to Yeyahu Nature Reserve. We were hoping to see some late migrants – birds such as Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler – and of course had in the back of our minds the chance of seeing the rare Streaked Reed Warbler, a possible of which I saw on Thursday at the same site.
After a 4am start and a predictably tortuous journey over the mountains past Badaling Great Wall (this route is notorious for breaking down lorries!), we arrived at the site by around 0615. After seeing Two-barred Greenish Warbler, Yellow-throated Bunting and Chinese Pond Heron along the entrance track, we took the boardwalk through the reedbed. The first stretch produced a high density of singing Oriental (Great) Reed Warblers along with a few Black-browed Reed Warblers, Pallas’s Grasshopper Warblers (most of which were picked up by Paul on call or a brief burst of song), a calling Yellow Bittern, a few Zitting Cisticolas and several Purple Herons (breeding in the reedbed in the south-west corner of the lake). But the highlight was undoubtedly the Siberian Bush Warbler Bradypterus davidi (a split from Spotted Bush Warbler Bradypterus thoracicus) that was expertly identified by Paul after a very brief burst of song… I have to say I would have almost certainly walked straight past it and, if I had heard it, I would probably have passed it off as an insect! After a bit of patience and ‘pishing’, this bird showed well at very close range, albeit briefly… A very difficult bird to see and a scarce, albeit regular, migrant in the Beijing area (almost certainly overlooked due to its extreme skulky nature). This experience reinforced to me the need to get learning all of the calls and songs of some of the more irregular and difficult to see birds in the Beijing area. Unless one is familiar with the calls, identifying and seeing many of these “difficult enough at the best of times” birds becomes almost impossible.
The walk along the grove of trees alongside the lake produced a good variety of phylloscopus warblers including Arctic, Two-barred Greenish, Pallas’s, Dusky and Radde’s plus a female Siberian Blue Robin, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Black-faced Bunting, a pair of Chinese Hill Warblers and a pair of nest-building Chinese Penduline Tits. On our second circuit we paused at a gap in the trees to scan the area of reedbeds and scrub to the north. After watching a pair of Eastern Marsh Harriers, a handful of Amur Falcons, displaying Richard’s Pipits, Siberian Stonechat, Hobby and Kestrel, the surprise of the day emerged, in the form of a Short-toed Eagle that appeared from nowhere and dropped into a field a few hundred metres away.. Short-toed Eagle is a pretty rare bird in northern China, although records from recent years suggest that it is probably a scarce passage migrant with multiple annual records in Spring and, particularly, Autumn.
With the visibility shockingly poor (due to the air pollution mist), our chances of seeing more large raptors were pretty low, so we decided to make a brief visit to Ma Chang to check the reservoir before heading back to Beijing. Ma Chang was a bit of a disappointment, largely due to the heavy disturbance involving cars, motorised buggies, horses, even coaches, driving all over the area adjacent to the reservoir… We did see a few Common Terns, Night Herons, Black-headed Gulls, the local Black-winged Stilts and a few Asian Short-toed Larks but there was little else on offer, so we knocked it on the head and headed back. On the journey back, Chris regaled us with tales of various leech encounters during his Pitta quest.. the one that took the biscuit had to be the case of the leech on the eyeball (thankfully for him, not his!)… OMG.
A very good day out and it’s always a pleasure to go birding with people as knowledgeable as Paul and Chris – I learned a lot. Thanks guys!
You can see a short video of Chris tracking the Bush Warbler here… The Bush Warbler’s call is very difficult to make out on the video (an up-slurred raspy sound), so you can hear a much clearer one on Xeno-Canto.
Birding in China: Guest Posts
I am always one for a new trend… and in the world of birding blogs there has been a recent move towards ‘multi-author blogs’ to pool effort, keep content fresh and provide more regular posts (because, let’s face it, we can’t all go out birding every day!). In that spirit, I thought it might be fun to pull together a few birders scattered across this vast country in which I currently reside to write some ‘guest posts’ for the Birding Beijing blog. All of those I have approached have responded enthusiastically (phew) and later today sees the publication of the first guest post from John Holmes, based in Hong Kong. Having read it already (the advantage of being the publisher), I know you will enjoy it!