Plight of Chinese turtles shows lax protection in China’s nature reserves
China’s nature reserves are woefully inadequate at protecting biodiversity, a 12-year study of turtle poaching in dozens of conservation areas has found. The research results, published 6 March in Current Biology, focus on turtles but draw larger conclusions about the state of wildlife conservation in China. The authors note that China has 2700 nature reserves covering 1.46 million square kilometers, or about 15% of the country’s total territory, a higher percentage than many other countries. And though China ranks first in flora and fauna richness in the Northern Hemisphere, 43% of those species are threatened. “We discovered that poaching occurred in all of the 56 reserves surveyed, resulting in dramatically reduced turtle populations,” the authors wrote. “In a majority of the reserves, the reserve staff themselves were generally involved in poaching.” Click the link to read more…
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Photo from Joe Blossom/NHPA/Photoshot/Newscom .
