Seeds of ecological conservation awareness now need nurturing

ZHENG NAIYUAN, A RURAL TEACHER IN XIUSHUI COUNTY, East China’s Jiangxi province, strived to protect the Chinese yew for years on his own. It was due to his efforts and perseverance that a countylevel natural protection area was established in 2010. Zheng received a Marsh Award for International Plant Conservation from Botanic Gardens Conservation International in 2014 and he has since become quite well-known. Thepaper.cn comments:

Zheng has received much praise for his efforts. However, he met all kinds of difficulties when trying to protect the Chinese yew and these deserve attention, too.

The leaves and branches of Chinese yew contain the cancer fighting compound paclitaxel. As a result, many people cut them for profit and when Zheng tried to stop them he was attacked. When he urged local residents to help him protect the trees, they simply ignored him.

For a long time, Zheng had no financial support so he spent his own money trying to protect the Chinese yew. These activities, such as constructing a road to the forest, cost him so much money that he could not even cover his son’s living expenses.

Fortunately, Zheng succeeded at last and a local protection area was founded in 2010. But the difficulties he encountered may be met by others trying to promote ecological conservation.

Chinese society has made huge progress in ecological conservation, but a major problem is that the people’s awareness of the importance of ecological conservation lags behind that of pioneers like Zheng.

These pioneering protectors of nature need more support from the State and society, so that their efforts become sustainable. More important, with more support, more people will join them and help promote the conservation of ecology.

We need pioneers such as Zheng. And they need our support.