When you leave nature to do it’s thing, amazing things happen. This preserve in China has made an amazing recovery of wild species.
CC BY 2.0 Rog01 37 species under national protection have been observed in the Ziwuling area, thanks to massive reforestation efforts. A few months ago I wrote about how China is planting 16.3 million acres of forest this year alone, with plans to increase forest coverage to 23 percent of its total landmass by the end of the decade. And you know what happens when you coax a forest back into being? Creatures great and small find a place to call home … and begin to thrive again. If anyone was looking for proof of this simple equation, they may need look no further than the Ziwuling Forest Area in Yan’an, Shannxi province. After two decades of "massive reforestation projects" in the area, the payoff is becoming evident. Researchers from Beijing Normal University have been using infrared cameras to check in on Ziwuling’s wildlife, and they have photographed all kinds of rare species. From golden pheasants and red foxes to roe deer, the menagerie of threatened animals adds to an earlier discovery of the largest-ever population of North-Chinese leopards in the area. At least 28 North-Chinese #leopards , the largest wild population, have been recorded in the past year […]
