NATURE RESERVES - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 115

imposes. Without diminishing the tremendous importance for downstream water users of
maintaining natural forest cover (the Hei River, which drains most of the Qilian, is already
overused for irrigation and runs dry by the time it enters Inner Mongolia 30 ), the Qilian Shan
Reserve has provided precious little habitat protection for sensitive wildlife. 31
Another early reserve in the west was the even larger Arjin Shan Reserve in Xinjiang,
which at 45,000 km 2 retained the honor of being China's largest for a number of years.
Among the first to host western scientists, the Arjin Shan, virtually uninhabited by people,
was initially reported to contain uncountable numbers of wild yaks, Tibetan wild ass,
argali, and chiru. 32 Subsequent surveys suggested that the distribution of these species
was uneven, and that while they might be abundant in some areas, they were completely
lacking in others. 33 When chiru poaching began in earnest, the small protection staff was
quickly overwhelmed, and the calving areas in the Arjin became prime poaching fields.
The report of biologist Bill Bleisch, who spent a number of field seasons in the Arjin, is
worth quoting at length: 34
Both herd size and herd number of wild yak seem to have declined during the last
decade. Chiru, target of organized poaching for international markets, have been
reduced to a small remnant of their former range and numbers. The migratory herd
of chiru that formerly roamed the western third of the reserve appears to be func-
tionally extinct. Argali may be rapidly approaching local extinction in the reserve.
Brown bear must now be presumed extinct within the reserve until proven otherwise.
During the past decade, it appears that there have been substantial decreases in the
abundance of nearly all large mammals in the [Arjin Reserve], with the possible
exception of kiang and wolf. The immediate causes of all of these reductions can be
assumed to be human disturbance, and in most cases, uncontrolled hunting. This in
turn reflects the lack of effective monitoring, educational programs, patrolling and
enforcement. The root causes of these problems are lack of resources and sustain-
able support for protection in the reserve.
The lack of sustainable support for nature reserves is a problem that is generic to
the Chinese nature reserve system. According to Chinese nature reserve law, even
national level nature reserves are dependent for their operating budgets on local
government. However, local government generally sees no immediate benefits from
the existence of a nature reserve, and often sees substantial opportunity costs in the
form of precluded options for profitable land uses, for exploitation of resources, or
for development of infrastructure. Nevertheless, they are required to provide funds
for salary and for operational costs, even for national level nature reserves. The
result is that nature reserve management authorities are powerless to address the
many threats faced by the reserve's habitat and wildlife. Even in the best cases, they
manage to do little more than monitor the deteriorating situation, with no means
and no support to mount effective counter-measures.
Despite much lower human density than elsewhere in China, most reserves in the west
generally still confront the oft-conflicting requirements of ecosystem integrity and local