Jonathan Watts - When a Billion Chinese Jump

We drove four hours east to the Heilong Jiang or Black Dragon River, 58which marks the border with Russia and gives China’s northernmost province its name. The water was frozen and gnarled into chunks. On the Chinese bank, several large ships were iced into their berths for the winter. On the Russian side, wisps of smoke curled up from the chimneys of a small settlement. In the middle of the icy expanse a military checkpoint sat on the territorial dividing line. Apart from a single border guard sweeping snow in front of the passport control barrier and a fisherman hacking a hole in the ice, there was not a soul in sight. The Black Dragon was hibernating.

Previous visitors to the border told me the densely populated Chinese side of the river was bare of trees and birds, while the sparsely habited Russian banks were covered in thick forests full of birds’ nests. I could not see such a big difference. But local Chinese fishermen shamelessly used this ecological disparity as a selling point. “Buy my fish,” said one seller. “They are good. The river is clean. Look over there. That is Russia. No pollution.”

But China’s environmental problems are spilling over the border. 59Since the introduction of domestic logging controls in 1998, Chinese demand has destroyed more forest than ever. The only difference is that the trees are being felled—usually illegally—outside its borders, in Siberia. 60From nothing, the timber trade across this border has suddenly become the most important on the planet.

Since 1998, the volume of wood entering China has risen ninefold, pushing the country up from seventh to second among the world’s forestry importers. Already tops for industrial roundwood and tropical logs, China is on course to overtake the United States as the number-one timber importer in all categories. 61

Following a pattern set in the West, but on a bigger scale with fewer self-constraints, China is snapping up more wood overseas even as it introduces domestic controls. This has accelerated illegal deforestation in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. But the biggest supplier by far is Russia, which provides 60 percent of the logs entering China. 62Much of it is used on construction. As buildings go up in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, the vast taiga boreal forests of eastern Russia are being flattened. 63Siberia is suffering the same fate as China’s Great Northern Wilderness. At the harvesting rates of the early twenty-first century, the Russian Far East is on course to be logged out within twenty years. 64

Day and night, long trains and convoys of trucks bring Siberian logs to China through gateways in Suifenhe, in Heilongjiang, and Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia. Wood is the main freight on the Trans-Mongolian Railway. In China, the imports are used for everything from doorframes to concert halls. When the monks at Wutaishan rebuilt their temple to bolster their bid for UN World Heritage status, they used Russian redwood because no domestic supplies were available. 65

Wen Bo of Pacific Environment, an NGO which operates on both sides of the border, told me that China has put huge ecological pressure on Russia. One side effect of timber smuggling, he said, was an illegal trade in wildlife. Tiger bone and skin, musk deer, ginseng, and even bears were sometimes concealed under the logs. He predicted the timber trade would diminish simply because there was not much top-quality forest left to cut, even in Siberia. The two countries had repeatedly pledged cooperation to tackle the problems, but governance was even less joined up across borders and languages. There was very little incentive for China’s bureaucrats and customs officials to act. The country’s economic growth was dependent on deforestation in other countries. There were even tax incentives for cross-border traders. 66Given these trends, even the toothpicks might one day be made with Russian wood. Import rules and logging bans in China had completely failed to halt the depletion of the world’s forests.

I left in the morning for the Shuilian wetland reserve to see if the government’s efforts to protect nature were more effective in a concentrated area. The first impression was bleak. The white flatland stretched off to a distant horizon. Reeds pressed through the frozen earth only to quiver in the icy wind. Hundreds of small birds flocked back and forth from telephone wires to tree branches. They were the biggest nonhuman population I had seen in a week. But the landscape felt more suburban than wild. Advertising hoardings, pylons, and farmhouses shared the outer fringe of this sanctuary.

That was the norm. Throw a stick in Heilongjiang and there was a one-in-seven chance it would fall in an area designated as a nature reserve, though much of this land was actually used for farms, yards, or roads.

Judged purely by statistics, the government is doing all the right things. China has more protected reserves covering a far wider area than any other country. A fifth were wetlands spread across an area roughly the same size as England. 67

In theory, they offer wildlife the full protection of the state. 68But, in practice, definitions of reserves are vague and penalties for violations so low that rules are easily circumvented by developers. Local governments are often hostile to reserves because they have to pay a share of the running costs while forfeiting the tax revenue that would come from turning over the land to farms or factories. As a result, most reserves are under-resourced and understaffed, often with people who care little about the environment.

Even the better-maintained wetlands are threatened by pesticides and herbicides and drainage for farmland. A 2005 UNESCO field survey at Lake Xinkai, the biggest lake in northeast China, found that the number of species had declined by 10 percent and wetland by a third. At Zha-long, another of the region’s most important reserves, poachers continue to prey on endangered species such as the red-crowned crane. The story was similar across the country. While I was in Heilongjiang, the domestic media reported the slaughter of protected swans in Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, one of the world’s most important wintering wetlands for migratory birds. The poachers were on a killing spree to satisfy the demand for exotic dishes ahead of the spring festival banquet season. 69Government protection is no match for seasonal market forces.

I asked one of China’s leading conservationists why reserves were so ineffective. Xie Yan, the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, had been trying to persuade policymakers and the public to boost protection for more than a decade. She said the problem was that the top-down system of establishing reserves floundered on a weak cultural and financial base.

“It is good that China has established so many reserves, but the capacity is very low. The employees’ awareness about conservation is very low. They just want a job. They don’t love wildlife,” she said.

With the exception of Tibet and a few other places where Buddhism was strong, she felt reserve managers had little passion for their work. In many cases they were poorly educated, badly trained, and underpaid. Jobs were often secured through family connections in the party or government, which allowed the staff either to do nothing in terms of patrols or, in the worst cases, to poach themselves to supplement their incomes. Access to exotic dishes and valuable ingredients for traditional medicines became a perk of the position. Xie had visited reserves where the welcoming banquet included dishes made from protected local species.

“If I had power, I would make an order that all government officials should not eat endangered species. They are the biggest consumers. Whenever they have an official banquet, they eat rare animals,” she sighed. 70