(CN) No monkeying around

[Guest guest]

China Daily http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/

 

09/07/2001

 

One day in December 1996, Professor Pan Wenshi and a graduate student

stepped into deserted barracks between Luobai and Banli townships of

Chongzuo County in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

They were delighted to find electricity and tap water working in the

barracks.

 

More importantly, the white-headed langurs (presbytis francoisi

leucocephalus tan) were living on forested limestone pinnacles just around

the compound.

 

Together with his students, Pan, a professor at Peking University known for

his research on the giant panda, had spent three months looking for a base

for his new research on the langur.

 

Known as the white-headed leaf monkey, it is one of the rarest species in

the world and can only be found in this part of China.

 

Pan and his students first considered an area bordering Chongzuo, which had

been designated by the local forestry department as a nature reserve.

However, Pan and his students left the nature reserve when some of the local

administrators asked them to help tame some monkeys for tourists.

 

In another county, they observed the monkeys for 10 days in a karst cave but

had to retreat because of a shortage of food and water.

 

At the barracks near the road, Pan finally found a base for his

ground-breaking research.

of the Giant Panda and Wildlife Conservation Research Centre at

Peking University, the 64-year-old zoologist has been renowned for his

cumulative achievements in panda research and conservation with a career

spanning more than 20 years.

 

After his panda research at the Changqing Nature Reserve in Northwest

China's Shaanxi Province was brought to a temporary close because of a

shortage of radio collars, he decided to launch the research of the monkey -

" an animal closer to human beings. "

 

" I have been interested in animals' social behaviour for years, " Pan

explained. " I expected my new research could gain an understanding of the

relationship between environmental factors and the leaf monkeys' special

habits, characteristics, social structure and behaviour.

 

" It will certainly improve my understanding of the panda's social behaviour

as well. "

 

And time is running out for the monkeys living on the cliffs. Reeling from

the double punch of poachers and habitat loss, the professor estimates that

only about 700 leaf monkeys are left in the wild, a population smaller than

the panda's, which numbers about 1,000.

 

" I expect my efforts could help save the creature from extinction, " he said.

 

What he didn't expect was that his efforts would also influence the local

government's decision-making and bring crucial changes to the lives of

locals.

 

With the support of the local government, Pan was able to establish the

Biodiversity Research Base of Peking University in Chongzuo.

 

" I never expected I could make friends with the local officials, " Pan said

at a newly-completed building nestled at the foot of a green limestone hill

in the base.

 

The ball started rolling about a week after Pan and his graduate student

moved into the barracks. Wei Junlin, then head of the county, heard about

their arrival and sent his driver to the barracks to pick them up for lunch.

 

" What Wei heard was that 'two strangers from Beijing moved into the barracks

and did nothing but watch the leaf monkeys on cliffs everyday,' " Pan

recalled Wei saying.

 

Pan and his student were a definite sight for sore eyes. " We had taken no

shower and had eaten nothing but instant noodles since we moved into the

barracks, " said the sturdy and energetic professor. " So we gobbled most of

dishes of the wonderful meal and asked to pack the leftovers.

 

" Certainly impressed by our greed and stink, Wei ordered several more dishes

for us to take home and sent us to a hotel for a shower, " Pan added with a

broad grin.

 

Since then, the county government has provided them with a meal and shower

twice a week for almost two years.

 

During the meals, Pan met many local officials and explained his research

and work. He often spoke of the need to protect the living environment of

the monkey and brought up the prospect of developing eco-tourism.

 

" We have become good friends, " the charismatic man said. " Now I can have

influence in their decision-making. "

 

Accepting his suggestions, the local government closed a limestone pit near

the barracks that was destroying the langur's habitat in the beginning of

1997.

 

In the beginning of 1998, the government shut down another one, which has

since become home for a family of seven leaf monkeys.

 

Learned old man

 

Pan also was instrumental in helping improve the quality of drinking water

in the village of Leizhai.

 

Leizhai is one of two villages neighbouring the barracks. In early 1997, Pan

and his student came to the village to visit the 84-year-old Lu Baoling,

hoping to learn something about the monkey's history.

 

The oldest man in the village received the scholar with a cup of tea which

was cloudy and opaque. Pan discovered that Lu had used water from the

village's pond to make the tea.

 

" I saw several buffaloes bathing in the pond when we entered the village, "

he recalled. " So I knew the villagers still shared the water with livestock.

I was shocked. "

 

Later he was told that many residents of the village had suffered from

hepatomegaly because of the poor quality of drinking water.

 

He described what he saw and heard to the local officials who began

addressing the problem.

 

Now villagers can drink clean water channeled into a cistern from the hills.

The professor naturally began winning the locals' hearts.

 

" The villagers began to give up poaching, " Pan said. " Many even help me to

educate those poachers from other areas. "

 

In March 1998, three local farmers saved a trapped young leaf monkey in the

mountains. They sent the monkey to the base where the professor tended to

him and then released him into the wild.

 

Pan realized that by helping the locals he helped the leaf monkeys.

 

In May 1998, Pan invited his friend Lit Ng and his wife Deng Sintao to visit

Chongzuo. He brought the Chinese-American couple to the primary school at

Badantun, another village near the barracks, and asked whether the couple

could provide financial aid to upgrade the shabby school.

 

" They agreed without hesitation, " Pan recalled. The school obtained

US$25,000 to complete a two-storey building in July last year. The number of

students has risen from 79 last year to 138 this year.

 

" Because of poverty, we used to be looked down by people of other villages, "

Huang Yunjian, head of the school, said. " Now they all say we're lucky, our

children are lucky. They hope to send their children to our school. "

 

Huang added, " We nicknamed Professor Pan 'golden old man.' "

 

It is a suitable nickname.

 

In October last year, the professor was presented with the prestigious J.

Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize of US$50,000 in San Diego,

California. The next month, he won the Ford Motor Foundation's Environment

Conservation Prize of 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) in Beijing.

 

He donated the Ford prize to the local government for a pilot project to

promote the use of methane-gas in Badantun and Leizhai.

 

" I hope it can provide an alternative to farmers' fuel, which has long been

from forests where the monkeys live, " he said.

 

" I will use the money from environment conservation to protect our

environment. "

 

His generosity and goodwill have been paid back.

 

In March this year, the local government decided to upgrade the barracks

into a research centre. So far more than 2 million yuan (US$241,000) has

been invested into the project.

 

When I came to the base recently, I met the scholar in a new flat building,

which contains a canteen, a kitchen and several well-equipped office rooms.

A student took me to my room in the base's dormitory where I found an

air-conditioner and warm water.

 

That afternoon, I also attended the inauguration ceremony of the Chongzhuo

Health Station of Health Science Centre of Peking University at the base.

 

The station, staffed with doctors and medicine from the university, " is open

to all of the local people, " Pan said at the ceremony.

 

Initial research results

 

Still, the most important reward for the professor's works still comes from

the leaf monkey.

 

The monkeys prefer to live in relatively fixed caves on the rugged and bumpy

karst rock hills.

 

Pan and his students count the monkeys and observe their family structure at

the foot of the hills every morning and evening.

 

From December 1996 to March 1998, they chronicled the monkey in an area of

about 8 square kilometres around the barracks and recorded 16 families of

147 langurs.

 

They conduct a census once every three months.

 

" To February this year, we found a total 20 families of 212 monkeys, " Pan

said, " which is inspiring. "

 

Sometimes in the morning, a family of four leaf monkeys would arrive at the

hill behind our dormitory. It is often the four dogs raised at the barracks

who know and inform us of their coming. From the roof of the building, I

could watch the monkeys feeding themselves or hurtling themselves through

the forests.

 

" As poaching has been put under control in our research area, the monkeys

are not really afraid of people, " Pan told me.

 

I was not the only visitor to the base. During my stay, Cheng Yanbin, a

female painter from Beijing, was volunteering to lead a group of the

professor's students to draw a colourful fresco on the outer wall of the new

building.

 

Images of dozens of endangered wild lives, such as China's giant panda,

white-headed langur and pink dolphin, Africa's gorilla and rhinoceros, polar

bear and penguin dominate the fresco.

 

Interwoven into the wild lives also are faces of us human beings, logged

forests, chimneys towering aloft, green mountains and blue ocean.

 

" I think the present living predicament of birds and animals has been caused

by agricultural and industrial civilizations of human beings, " he said.

 

" But we can create a new civilization, the ecological civilization, to help

birds and animals shake off their predicament and return the harmony between

man and nature.

 

" That's what I want to express by the work. "

 

In Chongzuo, the optimistic scholar said, he saw a trace of the bright

future.