In Memory of Rinchen Wangchuk

We were saddened to learn of the untimely death of Rinchen Wangchuk. Rinchen's contribution to furthering our knowledge about snow leopards is remarkable and a lasting legacy. Our sincerest sympathies are with his family.


Information about Rinchen and his work are on Sibylle Noras' blog.

Phil, Kun and the China snow leopards team.

Project latest (from Gansu Province)

Dear All,

Firstly thanks for Chen Ying for the previous stalling post. We have been variously camped out in sites in Xinjiang and Gansu, and are now proudly monitoring nine sites for snow leopard research and conservation across China (but more of that later).

I will start with the current news, rather than my usual, slightly ranty, stuff. Dr Shi Kun and I set up a team in Qilianshan Nature Reserve in Gansu, comprised of Beijing Forestry University students Ms Yuan Yi Fang and Mr Sun Qiao Qi, along with local Forestry Administration manager Mr Ma Yingjun and local community representative and guide extraordinaire, Mr Archun Qi. This area is of vital importance for snow leopard conservation and for understanding their ecology and dispersal. But more of that later - sorry I keep getting side-tracked...

Well, to the point. Here are the latest images from the camera traps:

 

I can't begin to explain how these make us feel, given the work involved and also because these represent vital information that will add to a growing database underpinning our research.

I'll end for the moment with one of Archun, Qiao Qi and I setting a camera in the field in Gansu.

More to come... and also from the teams in Xinjiang...

Much love (because I'm obviously in a good mood),
Phil.

P.S. I'll publish the research "back-story" soon.

Where's Phil?

Phil and the team (Dr Shi Kun, Sun Qioa Qi and Yuan Yi Fang) are currently establishing field sites and surveying snow leopards and their prey in the Qilianshan Nature Reserve in Gansu.I'm sure he will provide more details and pictures when they return.

Posted on Phil's behalf by Chen Ying.

Landed...

Hello All and Happy New Year.

First up for the year, this caught my eye on the BBC News website:

Tajikistan cedes land to China

China and Tajikistan say that they have settled a century-old border dispute, after the Central Asian nation agreed to cede land to China. The Tajik parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify a 1999 deal handing over 386 square miles (1,000 sq km) of land in the remote Pamir mountain range.

Full story here.

Phil.

Gaia? Is that you? Are you listening in?

As the world's national representatives now deliver near end game statements; many "reaffirming [our] pledge to Mother Earth", ME (seemingly in response if your beliefs are so placed) goes and chucks Typhoon Chaba at Japan. She then invites us all to watch as it arcs towards Nagoya, with flight schedules crumbling in anticipation of it. The plan (if one exists) may be simple: "you people are **** useless! There is no way you are just jumping on a plane as leaving. Now sit back down and deal with this mess you've made!". The Earth Mother equivalent of earthly mothers everywhere "you're not going anywhere 'til you've tidied your room".

Not forgetting dad's too. But the old Father's more concerned with the temporal. Now he's going to give us a real talking to later, mark my words.

Baton down the hatches: squall's a'coming...!
P.

The Power and The (In)gloriousness

Large international NGOs rule the world. Governments are nothing but aggregations of ciphers, inanely directing the will of unelected, unrepresentative white middle- and upper-class men.

Discuss.

I postulate this hypothesis based on nothing more than a few meetings and after COP drinks with various people, including white middle- or upper-class men running significant sections of large international NGOs. And they are lovely people. But is does strike me that some have disproportionately more influence than is possibly healthy. Evidence is presented in a number of forms. The most worry is that most of the government representatives here attend many other similar meetings on, for example, climate change, biosafety, finance, and tarmac (I made up the last one). They are frequently not specialists and rely on the input of trusted NGO minders.

Government people arrive with a statement of amendments to submit to the working groups tasked with drafting the agreements on biodiversity, often in the form of "We the people and government of X are grateful to the working group for their hard work in drafting an excellent document dealing with these important issues...". This goes on for a bit and then they will feel compelled to object to the erroneous inclusion of a comma here or there. After these initial sessions of comma removal or, rarely, elevation to a semi-colon, they will be ushered away by the heavies (also lovely people) of which ever NGO has managed to secure an interest in their country. They are then held in consensual captivity until such a time as they are needed for a high-level session or to brief their ministers, by which time they are well coached and will object/agree as the NGO dictates. A not insignificant and related feature, is the degree to which large international NGO funding from governments such the US is linked through overseas aid and development money. I see opportunities for all sorts of shenanigans.


Cynicism solidified through exposure to the global indecision making process, I'm now of to check my traps near the Chinese delegate paddock. So far just a Japanese badger (courtesy of Dr Yayoi Kaneko of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, or TUAT(!). After a long week at COP10 it was great to get close to some wildlife, including a fab little raccoon dog.)

Having trouble with your badgers? Riordan will sett (haha) you straight.

Sorry.

Arigatou gozaimasu.
P.

COP10 Nagoya

Hi All.

As promised, a hot off the SD photo from our stand at COP10. By the way, CEPA stands for Communities, Education and Public Awareness. But you already knew that.

P.