Nan Wang

Keep Tibetan Culture on Wildlife Conservation in Daocheng County, Sichuan, China

Daocheng is located in south-western China, which is in the area that infected by Tibetan culture. Base on believe in Buddhism, local people see killing life is a taboo and formed a conservation culture. Fish, Bird, and wild mammal have been conserved by the culture for a long history and keep a large population in this area. Recent tourism development makes some changing of the situation and the culture has been losing and the wild animals are consumed in some travel place. These mainly because the tourists lack the knowledge of the culture and local people tend to accept modern life way from outside.

So, let the local people keep the culture is very important to keep the wildlife and their habitat. During our visiting to local families and monasteries, we will rise up their consciousness on conserving the culture by showing our respect to the culture.

In Daocheng, there are many local stories and activities related in wildlife and sacred sites, especially in some remote villages, which well reflect the local culture on wildlife conservation. To collect the information of these will avoid losing of the culture under the background of modern life way and make the culture keep on working on the wildlife conservation. Some families and monasteries will be visited, and the related culture on wildlife and sacred grove will be collected by talking with local people. Some picture of local wildlife and some maps of local area will be showed to the local people to help their identifying each species and sacred site. Some video of the local conservation culture will be taken for education and publicizing.

Some wild animals in this area have large populations and can be seen closely. We have taken out the research on some pheasant species, Black necked crane, Ibisbill and the birds in sacred groves, and have many background knowledge of the local culture on wildlife conservation. Every year, we spend 2-4 months in the area for field work and have many opportunities to touch with local people and tourists, and they are interested in our research and the local culture, which will insure the project well put forward.

The publicizing to the tourists will be put forward through showing the video and taking report in some hotels, and the tourist will realize what is important in local culture on conservation and will not offend it during their visit.

To rise up the local government’s consciousness on keeping the conservation culture will make the project have a long time infection in this area. Some report of local culture on wildlife and sacred grove will be taken to put forward this.

To read about Nan's previous project http://www.ruffordsmallgrants.org/rsg/projects/wang_nan or for further information contact Wangnan761227@yahoo.com.cn