On an islet near China's southern city of Shenzhen, over 600
monkeys are on the brink of starving as the wild banana trees they
depend on are robbed of sunshine, water or even air by an alien
plant.?Actually, South American Climber, the so-called "plant
killer" which originates from Brazil, has swallowed most of other
plants on the islet in the past few years.
"The question is the situation is still deteriorating," said Wan
Fanghao, deputy director of the Center for Management of Invasive
Alien Species of the Ministry of Agriculture, wondering what
measures should be taken to protect China's biodiversity.
China, one of the countries that boast the richest biodiversity
in the world, has over 30,000 higher plants and 6,347 kinds of
vertebrates. But as the country opens wider to the outside world in
the past two decades, "China's ecosystem is facing a serious threat
from an increasing number of alien species", the expert said.
Amazonian snail has been named a notorious invasive alien
species by the Chinese ecologists since it entered the country in
the early 1980s.
"Many people used to see it on the dining table, but they failed
to notice that the little snail that had strong reproduction
capability was also quick in eating up paddy," said Wan.
At present, large patches of paddy in some parts of south China
and Taiwan are troubled by this snail plague as many snail raisers
have thrown the snails away after failing to attract food
buyers.
Statistics show that one to two invasive alien species like the
snail are discovered every year now, compared to one every eight to
ten years before 1990s.
"China lacks effective supervision and assessment of
environmental safety of alien species," said Wang Jie, senior
engineer of the species safety office of the State Environmental
Protection Administration (SEPA).
"The gravity of the issue is only realized after the alien
species has caused environmental damage," he said.
According to an investigation by SEPA, by 2003, China had
discovered 283 invasive alien species, ranging from terrestrial
plants and invertebrates, aquatic invertebrates and
microorganisms.
Statistics show that as early as in 2000, China suffered 119.876
billion yuan (US$14.44 billion) of losses from invasive alien
species, accounting for 1.36 percent of China's GDP that year, with
100.017 billion (US$12.05 billion) going to indirect economic
losses in the country's ecological system, species and genetic
sources.
Although China signed the Convention on Biological Diversity,
the first global agreement on the conservation and sustainable use
of biodiversity, as early as 1992 and has since then formulated
many programs and action plans on protecting biodiversity, "we have
to admit the results are far from satisfactory," said Wang.
"Biodiversity protection is a systematic social project, which
requires wide participation from the whole society for getting
things done. But many people have no idea that their daily
activities may affect the ecological system."
In recent years, Chinese tourists are often accused by customs
of bringing back without declaration alien fruits or pets from
overseas.
According to an investigation, apart from 3.1 percent of natural
transfer and 49.3 percent of unconscious import, 39.6 percent of
the 283 species are brought in purposely, most of which have turned
out to be destructive to the local biological safety.
"Some alien species hidden in the fruits or pets are detected by
customs officials, but some are not, which may turn out to be
invasive and damaging to the local environment."
"China has made great advances in biodiveristy protection, but
we are still facing daunting tasks in this regard," he said.
May 22 is the International Day for Biological Diversity (IBD)
proclaimed by the United Nations in the 1990s. This year's theme
is: Biodiversity Food, Water and Health for all, chosen to reflect
human's strong commitment to biodiversity protection.
(Xinhua News Agency May 23, 2004)