Wild China Script
Made by Youngxin
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Heart of the Dragon
The last hidden world——China.
For centuries, travelers to China have told tales of magical landscapes and surprising creatures. Chinese civilization is the world's oldest and today——its largest, with well over a 1.3 billion people. It is home to more than 50 distinct ethnic groups and a wide range of traditional lifestyles, often in close partnership with nature.
We know that China faces immense social and environmental problems. But there is great beauty here, too.
China is home to the world's highest mountains, vast deserts ranging from searing hot to mind-numbing cold, Steaming forests harboring rare creatures, Grassy plains beneath vast horizons, and rich tropical seas.
Now for the first time ever, we can explore the whole of this great country, meet some of the surprising and exotic creatures that live here and consider the relationship of the people and wild life of China to the remarkable landscape in which they live.
This is wild China.
Our exploration of China begins in the warm, subtropical south. On the Li River, fishermen and birds perch on bamboo rafts, a partnership that goes back more than a thousand years. This scenery is known throughout the world, a recurring motif in Chinese paintings and a major tourist attraction.
The south of China is a vast area, eight times larger than the UK. It's a landscape of hills but also of water. It rains here for up to days a year, and standing water is everywhere. In the floodplain of the Yangtze River, black-tailed godwits probe the mud in search of worms. But isn't just wildlife that thrives in this environment.
The swampy ground provides ideal conditions for a remarkable member of the grass family——Rice. The Chinese have been cultivating rice for at least 8,000 years. It has transformed the landscape.
Late winter in southern Yunnan is a busy time for local farmers as they prepare the age-old paddy fields ready for the coming spring. These hill slopes of the Yuanyang County plunge nearly 2000 meters to the floor of the Red River valley. Each contains literally thousands of stacked terraces carved out by hand using basic digging tools. Yunnan's rice terraces are among the oldest human structures in China, still ploughed, as they always have been, by domesticated water buffaloes, whose ancestors originated in these very valleys.
This man-made landscape is one of the most amazing engineering feats of pre-industrial China. It seems as if every square inch of land has been pressed into cultivation. As evening approaches, an age-old ritual unfolds.
It's the mating season and male paddy frogs are competing for the attention of the females. But
it doesn't always pay to draw too much attention to yourself. The Chinese pond heron is a pitiless predator. Even in the middle of a ploughed paddy field, nature is red in beak and claw. This may look like a slaughter but as each heron can swallow only one frog at a time, the vast majority will escape to croak another day.
Terraced paddies like those of the Yuanyang County are found across much of southern China. This whole vast landscape is dominated by rice cultivation. In hilly Guizhou Province, the Miao minority have developed a remarkable rice culture. With every inch of fertile land given over to rice cultivation, the Miao build their wooden houses on the steepest and least productive hillsides.
In Chinese rural life, everything has a use. Dried in the sun, manure from the cow sheds will be used as cooking fuel.
It's midday. And the Song family are tucking into a lunch of rice and vegetables. Oblivious to the domestic chit-chat, Granddad Gu Yong Xiu has serious matters on his mind.
Spring is the start of the rice growing season.
The success of the crop will determine how well the family will eat next year, so planting at the right time is critical. The ideal date depends on what the weather will do this year, never easy to predict. But there is some surprising help at hand.
On the ceiling of the Songs' living room, a pair of red-rumped swallows, newly arrived from their winter migration, is busy fixing up last year's nest. In China, animals are valued as much for their symbolic meaning as for any good they may do.
Miao people believe that swallow pairs remain faithful for life, so their presence is a favour and a blessing, bringing happiness to a marriage and good luck to a home. Like most Miao dwellings, the Songs' living room windows look out over the paddy fields. From early spring, one of these windows is always left open to let the swallows come and go freely. Each year, granddad Gu notes the exact day the swallows return. Miao people believe the birds' arrival predicts the timing of the season ahead. This year, they were late. So Gu and the other community elders have agreed that rice planting should be delayed accordingly.
As the Miao prepare their fields for planting, the swallows collect mud to repair their nests and chase after insects across the newly ploughed paddies. Finally, after weeks of preparation, the ordained time for planting has arrived. But first the seedlings must be uprooted from the nursery beds and bundled up ready to be transported to their new paddy higher up the hillside. All the Songs' neighbors have turned out to help with the transplanting. It's how the community has always worked. When the time comes, the Songs will return the favour.
While the farmers are busy in the fields, the swallows fly back and forth with material for their nest.
Many hands make light work. Planting the new paddy takes little more than an hour. Job done, the villagers can relax, at least until tomorrow. But for the nesting swallows, the work of raising a family has only just begun.
In the newly planted fields, little egrets hunt for food. The rice paddies harbour tadpoles, fish
and insects and the egrets have chicks to feed.
This colony in Chongqing Province was established in 1996, when a few dozen birds built nests in the bamboo grove behind Yang Guang village. Believing they were a sign of luck, local people initially protected the egrets and the colony grew. But their attitude changed when the head of the village fell ill. They blamed the birds and were all set to destroy their nests, when the local government stepped in to protect them.
Bendy bamboo may not be the safest nesting place, but at least this youngster won't end up as someone's dinner. These chicks have just had an eel delivered by their mum, quite a challenge for little beaks.
Providing their colonies are protected, wading birds like egrets are among the few wild creatures which benefit directly from intensive rice cultivation.
Growing rice needs lots of water. But even in the rainy south, there are landscapes where water is surprisingly scarce. This vast area of southwest China, the size of France and Spain combined, is famous for its clusters of conical hills, like giant upturned egg cartons, separated by dry empty valleys.
This is the Karst, a limestone terrain which has become the defining image of southern China. Karst landscapes are often studded with rocky outcrops, forcing local farmers to cultivate tiny fields. The people who live here are among the poorest in China.
In neighboring Yunnan Province, limestone rocks have taken over entirely. This is the famous Stone Forest, the product of countless years of erosion, producing a maze of deep gullies and sharp-edged pinnacles. Limestone has the strange property that it dissolves in rainwater. Over many thousands of years water has corroded its way deep into the heart of the bedrock itself. This natural wonder is a famous tourist spot, receiving close to two million visitors each year. The Chinese are fond of curiously-shaped rocks and many have been given fanciful names. No prizes for guessing what this one is called! But there's more to this landscape than meets the eye. China has literally thousands of mysterious caverns concealed beneath the visible landscape of the karst. Much of this hidden world has never been seen by human eyes and is only just now being explored.
For a growing band of intrepid young Chinese explorers, caves represent the ultimate adventure. Exploring a cave is like taking a journey through time. A journey which endless raindrops will have followed over countless centuries. Fed by countless drips and trickles, the subterranean river carves ever deeper into the rock. The cave river's course is channeled by the beds of limestone. A weakness in the rock can allow the river to increase its gradient and flow-rate, providing a real challenge for the cave explorers.
The downward rush is halted when the water table is reached. Here the slow-flowing river carves tunnels with a more rounded profile. This tranquil world is home to specialized cave fishes, like the eyeless golden barb. China may have more unique kinds of cave-evolved fishes than anywhere else on earth.
Above the water table, ancient caverns abandoned by the river slowly fill up with stalactites and stalagmites. Stalactites form as trickling water deposits tiny quantities of rock over hundreds or thousands of years. Stalagmites grow up where lime-laden drips hit the cave floor.
- Oi!
- Whoo-hoo!
So far, only a fraction of China's caves have been thoroughly prospected and cavers are constantly discovering new subterranean marvels, many of which are subsequently developed into commercial show caves.
Finally escaping the darkness, the cave river and its human explorers emerge in a valley far from where their journey began. For now, the adventure is over.
Rivers which issue from caves are the key to survival in the karst country. This vertical gorge in Guizhou Province is a focal point for the region's wildlife.
This is one of the world's rarest primates——Frangois' langur. In China they survive in just two southern provinces, Guizhou and Guangxi, always in rugged limestone terrains. Like most monkeys, they are social creatures and spend a great deal of time grooming each other.
Langurs are essentially vegetarian with a diet of buds, fruits and tender young leaves. Babies are born with ginger fur, which gradually turns black from the tail end. Young infants have a vice-like grip, used to cling on to mum for dear life. As they get older, they get bolder and take more risks. Those that survive spend a lot of time traveling. The experienced adults know exactly where to find seasonal foods in different parts of their range.
In such steep terrain, travel involves a high level of climbing skill. These monkeys are spectacularly good rock climbers from the time they learn to walk.
In Langurs society, females rule the roost and take the lead when the family is on the move. One section of cliff oozes a trickle of mineral-rich water which the monkeys seem to find irresistible.
These days there are few predators in the Mayanghe Reserve which might pose a risk to a baby monkey. But in past centuries, this area of south China was home to leopards, pythons and even tigers. To survive dangerous night prowlers, the Langurs went underground, using their rock-climbing skills to seek shelter in inaccessible caverns.
Filmed in near darkness using a night vision camera, the troop clambers along familiar ledges worn smooth by generations before them. During cold winter weather, the monkeys venture deeper underground where the air stays comparatively warm. At last, journey's end. A cozy niche beyond the reach of even the most enterprising predator.
But it's not just monkeys that find shelter in caves. These children are off to school.
In rural China that may mean a long trek each morning, passing through a cave or two on the way. But not all pupils have to walk to school. These children are boarders. As the day pupils near journey's end, the boarders are still making breakfast. In the schoolyard, someone seems to have switched the lights off. But this is no ordinary playground, and no ordinary school.
It's housed inside a cave!
A natural vault of rock keeps out the rain so there's no need for a roof on the classroom.
Zhongdong cave school is made up of six classes, with a total of 200 children. As well as the school, the cave houses 18 families, together with their livestock. These could be the only cave-dwelling cows on earth. With schoolwork over, it's playtime at last.
In southern China, caves aren't just used for shelter, they can be a source of revenue for the community. People have been visiting this cave for generations. The cave floor is covered in guano, so plentiful that minutes' work can fill these farmer's baskets. It's used as a valuable source of fertilizer.
A clue to the source of the guano can be heard above the noise of the river. The sound originates high up in the roof of the cave. The entrance is full of swifts.
They're very sociable birds. More than, of them share this cave in southern Guizhou Province, the biggest swift colony in China. These days, Chinese house swifts mostly nest in the roofs of buildings, but rock crevices like these were their original home, long before houses were invented. Though the swifts depend on the cave for shelter, they never stray further than the limits of daylight, as their eyes can't see in the dark.
However, deep inside the cavern, other creatures are better equipped for subterranean life.
A colony of bats is just waking up, using ultrasonic squeaks to orientate themselves in the darkness. Night is the time to go hunting.
Rickett's mouse-eared bat is the only bat in Asia which specializes in catching fishes, tracking them down from the sound reflection of ripples on the water surface. This extraordinary behaviour was only discovered in the last couple of years, and has never been filmed before. If catching fish in the dark is impressive, imagine eating a slippery minnow with no hands while hanging upside down.
Dawn over the Karst hills of Guilin.
These remarkable hills owe their peculiar shapes to the mildly acid waters of the Li River, whose meandering course over eons of time has corroded away their bases until only the rocky cores remain. The Li is one of the cleanest rivers in China, a favourite spot for fishermen with their trained cormorants.
The men, all called Huang, come from the same village. Now in their 70s and 80s, they've been fishermen all their lives. Before they release the birds, they tie a noose loosely around the neck to stop them swallowing any fish they may catch. Chanting and dancing, the Huangs encourage their birds to take the plunge. Underwater, the cormorant's hunting instinct kicks in, turning them into fish-seeking missiles.
Working together, a good cormorant team can catch a couple of dozen decent-sized fish in a morning. The birds return to the raft with their fish because they've been trained to do so. From the time it first hatched, each of these cormorants has been reared to a life of obedience to its master. The birds are, in effect, slaves. But they're not stupid. It's said that cormorants can keep a
tally of the fish they catch, at least up to seven. So unless they get a reward now and then they simply withdraw their labour. The fishermen, of course, keep the best fish for themselves. The cormorants get the leftover tiddlers. With its collar removed, the bird at last can swallow its prize. Best of all, one it isn't meant to have!
These days, competition from modern fishing techniques means the Huangs can't make a living from traditional cormorant fishing alone. And this 1300,-year-old tradition is now practiced mostly to entertain tourists.
But on Caohai Lake in nearby Guizhou Province, an even more unusual fishing industry is alive and well. Geng Zhong Sheng is on his way to set out his nets for the night.
Geng's net is a strange tubular contraption with a closed-off end. More than a hundred fishermen make their living from the lake. Its mineral-rich waters are highly productive, and there are nets everywhere.
The next morning, Geng returns with his son to collect his catch. At first sight, it looks disappointing. Tiny fishes, lots of shrimps, and some wriggling bugs. Geng doesn't seem too downhearted. The larger fish are kept alive, the only way they'll stay fresh in the heat. Surprisingly, some of the bugs are also singled out for special treatment. They're the young stage of dragonflies, predators that feed on worms and tadpoles. Nowhere else in the world are dragonfly nymphs harvested like this.
Back home, Geng spreads his catch on the roof to dry. This being China, nothing edible will be wasted. There's a saying in the far south, "We will eat anything with legs except a table," and anything with wings except a plane."
Within a few hours, the dried insects are ready to be bagged up and taken to market. It's the dragonfly nymphs that fetch the best price.
Fortunately, Caohai's dragonflies are abundant and fast-breeding. So Geng and his fellow fishermen have so far had little impact on their numbers. But not all wildlife is so resilient.
This Buddhist temple near Shanghai has an extraordinary story attached to it.
In May, a wild China camera team filmed this peculiar Swinhoe's turtle in the temple's fish pond. According to the monks, the turtle had been given to the temple during the Ming dynasty, over 400 years ago. It was thought to be the oldest animal on earth. Soft-shelled turtles are considered a gourmet delicacy by many Chinese, and when it was filmed, this was one of just three Swinhoe's turtles left alive in China, the rest of its kind having been rounded up and eaten. Sadly, just a few weeks after filming, this ancient creature died. The remaining individuals of its species are currently kept in separate zoos and Swinhoe's turtle is now reckoned extinct in the wild. In fact, most of the 25 types of freshwater turtles in China are now vanishingly rare.
The answer to extinction is protection. And there is now a growing network of nature reserves throughout southern China.
Of these, the Tianzi Mountain Reserve at Zhangjiajie is perhaps the most visited by Chinese nature lovers, who come to marvel at the gravity-defying landscape of soaring sandstone
pinnacles.
Winding between Zhangjiajie's peaks, crystal clear mountain streams are home to what is perhaps China's strangest creature.
This bizarre animal is a type of newt, the Chinese giant salamander. In China it is known as the baby fish because when distressed it makes a sound like a crying infant. It grows up to a meter and a half long, making it the world's largest amphibian. Under natural conditions, a giant salamander may live for decades. But like so many Chinese animals, it is considered delicious to eat.
Despite being classed as a protected species, giant salamanders are still illegally sold for food and the baby fish is now rare and endangered in the wild. Fortunately, in a few areas like Zhangjiajie, giant salamanders still survive under strict official protection.
The rivers of Zhangjiajie flow north east into the Yangtze floodplain, known as The Land of Fish and Rice.
On an island in a lake in Anhui Province, a dragon is stirring.
This is the ancestral home of China's largest and rarest reptile, a creature of mystery and legend. Dragon eggs are greatly prized. These babies need to hatch out quick! It would seem someone is on their trail.
For a helpless baby reptile, imprisoned in a leathery membrane inside a chalky shell, the process of hatching is a titanic struggle. And time is running out. It's taken two hours for the little dragon to get its head out of the egg. It needs to gather its strength now, for one final, massive push.
Free at last, the baby Chinese alligators instinctively head upwards towards the surface of the nest and the waiting outside world.
But the visitors are not what they seem. She Shizhen and her son live nearby. She has been caring for her local alligators for over 20 years, so she had a fair idea when the eggs were likely to hatch.
Back home, she's built a pond surrounded by netting to keep out predators, where her charges will spend the next six months until they're big enough to fend for themselves.
For the past 20 years, small-scale conservation projects like this are all that have kept China's 150 wild alligators from extinction.
Just south of the alligator country, dawn breaks over a very different landscape. The 1,800-metre-high granite peaks of the Huangshan or Yellow Mountain.
To the Chinese, Huangshan's pines epitomize the strength and resilience of nature. Some of these trees are thought to be over 1,000 years old. Below the granite peaks, steep forested valleys shelter surprising inhabitants.
Huangshan macaques, rare descendants of the Tibetan macaques of western China, are unique to these mountain valleys where they enjoy strict official protection.
After a morning spent in the treetops, the troop is heading for the shade of the valley. A chance for the grown-ups to escape the heat and maybe pick up a lunch snack from the stream.
As in most monkey societies, social contact involves a lot of grooming. Grooming is all very well for grown-ups, but young macaques have energy to burn.
Like so much monkey business, what starts off as a bit of playful rough-and-tumble, soon begins to get out of hand.
The alpha male has seen it all before. He's not in the least bothered. But someone, or something, is watching, with a less than friendly interest.
The Chinese moccasin is an ambush predator with a deadly bite. This is one of China's largest and most feared venomous snakes. But the monkeys have lived alongside these dangerous serpents for thousands of years. They use this specific alarm call to warn each other whenever a snake is spotted. Once its cover is blown, the viper poses no threat to the monkeys, now safe in the treetops. And life soon returns to normal.
By late summer, the rice fields of southern China have turned to gold. The time has come to bring in the harvest.
Nowadays, modern high-yield strains are grown throughout much of the rice lands, boosted by chemical fertilizers and reaped by combine harvesters. This is the great rice bowl of China, producing a quarter of the world's rice.
Insects, stirred up by the noisy machines, are snapped up by gangs of red-rumped swallows, including this year's youngsters, who will have fledged several weeks ago. This could be their last good feast before they head south for the winter.
Mechanized farming works best in the flat-bottomed valleys of the lowlands. To the south, in the terraced hills of Zhejiang Province, an older and simpler lifestyle persists.
It's: in the morning and Longxian's most successful businessman is off to work. In the golden terraces surrounding the village the ears of rice are plump and ripe for harvesting.
But today, rice isn't uppermost in Mr Yang's mind. He has bigger fish to fry.
Further up the valley, the harvest has already begun. Yang's fields are ripe, too, but they haven't been drained yet. That's because for him, rice is not the main crop.
The baskets he's carried up the hillside give a clue to Yang's business. But before he starts work, he needs to let some water out of the system. As the water level drops, the mystery is revealed——Golden carp.
Longxian villagers discovered the benefits of transferring wild caught carp into their paddy fields long ago. The tradition has been going on here for at least 700 years.
As the water level in the paddy drops, bamboo gates stop the fish escaping. The beauty of this farming method is that it delivers two crops from the same field at the same time.
- Fish and rice.
Smart ecology like this is what enables China to be largely self-sufficient in food, even today.
Back in the village, Yang has his own smokehouse where he preserves his fish ready for market. Longxian carp have unusually soft scales and a very delicate flavor, perhaps as a result of the local water.
Meanwhile, outside the smokehouse, there's something fishy going on.
To mark the harvest, the village is staging a party. Children from Longxian School have spent weeks preparing for their big moment. Everyone from the community is here to support them.
The rice growing cycle is complete.
By November, northern China is becoming distinctly chilly. But the south is still relatively warm and welcoming. Across the vast expanse of Poyang Lake, the birds are gathering.
Tundra swans are long-distance migrants from northern Siberia.
To the Chinese, they symbolize the essence of natural beauty.
The Poyang Lake Nature Reserve offers winter refuge to more than a quarter of a million birds from more than 100 species, creating one of southern China's finest wildlife experiences.
The last birds to arrive at Poyang are those which have made the longest journey to get here, all the way from the Arctic coast of Siberia.
The Siberian crane, known in China as the white crane, is seen as a symbol of good luck. Each year, almost the entire world population of these critically endangered birds make a 9000-kilometre roundtrip to spend the winter at Poyang.
Like the white cranes, many of south China's unique animals face pressure from exploitation and competition with people over space and resources. But if China is living proof of anything, it is that wildlife is surprisingly resilient. Given the right help, even the rarest creatures can return from the brink.
If we show the will, nature will find the way.
Shangri-La
Beneath billowing clouds, in China's far southwestern Yunnan province, lies a place of mystery and legend.
Of mighty rivers and some of the oldest jungles in the world.
Here, hidden valleys nurture strange and unique creatures, and colorful tribal cultures.
Jungles are rarely found this far north of the tropics.
So, why do they thrive here?
And how has this rugged landscape come to harbor the greatest natural wealth in all China?
In the remote southwest corner of China, a celebration is about to take place.
Dai people collect water for the most important festival of their year.
The Dai call themselves the people of the water.
Yunnan's river valleys have been their home for over 2,000 years.
By bringing the river water to the temple, they honor the two things holiest to them Buddhism and their home.
The Dai give thanks for the rivers and fertile lands which have nurtured their culture.
Though to some, it might seem just an excuse for the biggest water fight of all time.
Dai lives are changing as towns get bigger and modernize but the Water Splashing Festival is still celebrated by all.
The rivers which lie at the heart of Dai life and culture flow from the distant mountains of Tibet, southward through central Yunnan in great parallel gorges.
The Dai now live in the borders of tropical Vietnam and Laos, but their legends tell of how their ancestors came here by following the rivers from mountain lands in the cold far north.
Lying at the far eastern end of the Himalayas, the Hengduan Mountains form Yunnan's northern border with Tibet.
Kawakarpo, crown of the Hengduan range, is a site of holy pilgrimage. Yet, its formidable peak remains unconquered.
Yunnan's mountains are remote, rugged and inaccessible. Here the air is thin and temperatures can drop below minus 40 degrees.
This is home to an animal that's found nowhere else on Earth - The Yunnan snub-nosed monkey. It's found only in these few isolated mountain forests. No other primate lives at such high altitudes. But these are true specialists. These ancient mountain dwellers have inspired legends. Local Lisu people consider them their ancestors, calling them "the wild men of the mountains". During heavy snowfalls, even these specialists cannot feed. It seems a strange place for a monkey. Between snows, the monkeys waste no time in their search for food. At this altitude, there are few fruits or tender leaves to eat. 90% of their diet is made up of the fine dry wisps of a curious organism.
Half fungus, half plant - it's lichen.
How have monkeys, normally associated with lowland jungle, come to live such a remote mountain existence?
This is not the only remarkable animal found within these isolated high peaks.
- A Chinese red panda.
Solitary and quiet, it spends much of its time in the tree tops. Despite its name, the red panda is only a very distant relative of the giant panda. It's actually more closely related to a skunk. But it does share the giant panda's taste for bamboo. Southwest China's red pandas are known for their very strong facial markings which distinguish them from red pandas found anywhere else in the Himalayas.
Like the monkeys, they were isolated in these high forests when the mountains quite literally rose beneath them in the greatest mountain-building event in recent geological history.
Over the last 30 million years, the Indian subcontinent has been pushing northwards into Eurasia. On the border between India and Tibet the rocks have been raised eight kilometers above sea level, creating the world's highest mountain range - the Himalayas. But to the east, the rocks have buckled into a series of steep north-south ridges, cutting down through the heart of Yunnan, the parallel mountains of the Hengduan Shan.
These natural barriers serve to isolate Yunnan's plants and animals in each adjacent valley. While the huge temperature range between the snowy peaks and the warmer slopes below provides a vast array of conditions for life to thrive.
Through spring, the Hengduan slopes stage one of China's greatest natural spectacles. The forests here are among the most diverse botanical areas in the world. Over 18,000 plant species grow here, of which 3,000 are found nowhere else.
Until little more than a century ago, this place was unknown outside China. But then news reached the West of a mysterious, hidden world of the orient.
- Hidden among the mountains, a lost Shangri-la paradise.
Western high society, in the grip of a gardening craze, was eager for exotic species from faraway places.
This gave rise to a new breed of celebrity adventurers, intrepid botanist-explorers known as "the Plant Hunters".
Yunnan became their Holy Grail.
The most famous was Joseph Rock, a real life Indiana Jones. Remarkable film footage captured his entourage on a series of expeditions, as they pushed into the deepest corners of Yunnan.
In glorious co lour he recorded the plant life he found on special photographic glass plates.
Sending thousands of specimens back to the West, the Plant Hunters changed the gardens of the world forever.
Rock's success was born of a massive effort.
For, to find his Shangri-la, not only had he to traverse endless mountain ranges, but some of the deepest gorges in the world.
The Nujiang is called The Angry River. This 300-kilometre stretch of raging rapids is as much a barrier to life as are the mountains above. But the plant hunters weren't the first people to travel here. Along the Nujiang, less than 30 rope crossings allow locals passage across the torrents.
Tiny hamlets cling to the slopes. This morning, it's market day, drawing people from up and down the valley.
PIG OINKS
GOAT BLEATS
Hanging from simple rope slings, people have been using the crossings for many hundreds of years. In such narrow, precipitous gorges it's by far the easiest way to get around. Once across, the steep sides mean it's still a hike. Many trek for hours by foot before they get to the market.
The immense valley is home to over a dozen ethnic groups. Some, like the Nu people, are found only here. The markets bring the mountain tribes together.
To continue his expeditions, Rock had to get his entire entourage across the giant Yunnan rivers. He commissioned especially thick ropes made from forest rattan and filmed the entire event. With yak butter to smooth the ride, 40 men and 15 mules made the journey. Not all made it across.
On the far side of the great Nujiang gorge, the Plant Hunters made a remarkable discovery.
Far from the tropics, they seemed to be entering a steamy, vibrant tropical jungle, the forest of Gaoligongshan.
The flora here is unlike anywhere else in the world. Next to subtropical species, alpine plants grow in giant form.
- Crowning the canopy, rhododendrons, up to 30 meters high.
In April and May, their flowers turn the forests ruby red, attracting bird species found only here.
Constant moisture in the air means that the branches are laden with flowering epiphytes, fiercely guarded by tiny sunbirds, unique to these valleys.
Nectar feeders, these are the humming birds of the Old World tropics.
The forests of Gaoligongshan are home to some of China's rarest wildlife.
This is a female Temminck's Tragopan. She has a colorful male admirer. He's hoping to woo her with his peculiar peekaboo display but she's not about to be rushed.
His colorful skin wattle reflects more light than feathers do. To her, this is like a neon sign.
Seeing his chance, the male makes his move.
Constant moisture in the Gaoligongshan forests means that throughout the year there are always fruits on the trees. Such abundance of food encourages a high diversity of fruit eaters more commonly found in the tropics. The black giant squirrel is found only in undisturbed rainforest. At close to a meter in length, it's one of the world's largest squirrels. The mystery is that these forests are growing well outside the tropics. By rights, none of this jungle, or its animals, should be here.
These are bear macaques. They're found only in tropical and sub-tropical jungle. With a tiny home range of just a few square kilometers, they depend on the abundant fruit that only true rainforests can provide all year round.
To the European plant hunters, these northern rainforests must have seemed a fantastic and mysterious lost world. Yet, when they came here, they would have found beautifully constructed ancient stone pathways on which the forest could be explored.
Winding westwards into the hills, these were once some of the most important highways in Asia, the southwestern Tea and Silk Road.
Built thousands of years ago, the southwestern Tea and Silk Road gave access to the world beyond China's borders, carrying tradesmen and travelers from as far away as Rome.
Wars were fought over access to this tiny path, the only sure route in or out of China that was guaranteed to be clear of snow all year round.
So, what causes Gaoligongshan's strange and remarkable climate?
In late May, gusts of wind arrive, bringing with them the key to Gaoligongshan's mystery. The winds are hot and saturated with water. They come all the way from the Indian Ocean. Channeled by Yunnan's unique geography, they bring with them the moisture of the tropical monsoon. The giant river valleys, created millions of years ago, act like immense funnels. The gorges are so deep and narrow, that the moist warm air is driven right up into the north of Yunnan. The result is rain, in torrents!
Four months of daily rainstorms sustain luxuriant vegetation.
The arrival of the monsoon awakens one of the forest's most extraordinary moisture-loving inhabitants.
The crocodile newt is one of the most unusual of the many amphibian species found here. As the rains arrive, they emerge to mate. The newts are said to leave an odor trail that potential mates can follow. The crocodile newt gets its name from the bumps along its back. These are its defense. If grabbed by a potential predator, the tips of its ribs squeeze a deadly poison from the bumps.
The deluge wakes another forest inhabitant.
This one is particularly astounding in its vigor! It can grow up to a meter a day, fast overtaking the other plants around it. The taller it grows, the faster its growth rate, so that in a matter of days it towers above the undergrowth, and continues reaching for the sky. Not bad for what is essentially a grass.
It's bamboo.
Given the chance, bamboo will create immense forests, dominating entire areas. Bamboo forests occur across southwest China, all the way to Shanghai. But probably the highest diversity of bamboos in the world is found on the hills and valleys of Yunnan Though incredibly strong, bamboos have hollow stems, a perfect shelter for any creatures which can find a way in.
This entrance hole was made by a beetle but it's being used by a very different animal.
- A bamboo bat.
The size of a bumblebee, it's one of the tiniest mammals in the world. The entire colony, up to 25 bats, fits into a single section of bamboo stem, smaller than a tea cup. It's quite a squeeze!
Half the colony are babies. Though barely a week old, they are already almost as big as their mums. Feeding such a fast-growing brood is hard work. The mums leave to hunt just after dusk each night.
Back in the roost, the young are left on their own. Special pads on their wings help them to grip on the bamboo walls most of the time. The young bats use the extra space to prepare for a life on the wing by preening and stretching. Packed in like sardines, they would make an easy target for a snake. But the snake has no chance of getting in. The entrance is thinner than the width of a pencil. When the mothers return, they can push through the narrow entrance only because of their unusually flattened skulls. But it's still a squeeze.
Bamboos are exploited in a very different way by another forest dweller. Fresh bamboo shoots are an important forest crop.
Ai Lao Xiang is of the Hang tribe, from the mountain village of Mengsong. Roasted, the tender shoots he gathers will make a tasty dish. The Hani have many uses for the different bamboos they grow and find in the forest around. Though flexible enough to be woven, bamboo has a higher tensile strength than steel. Succulent when young, in maturity it's tough and durable, ideal for making a table and strong enough for a pipe to last a lifetime.
The people of southwest China have found an extraordinary number of ways to exploit this most versatile of plants.
THEY SPEAK IN NATIVE LANGUAGE
Part of bamboo's phenomenal success is that it's so tough that few animals can tackle it. Yet, bamboo does come under attack.
- A bamboo rat.
Feeding almost exclusively on bamboo, they live their entire lives in tunnels beneath the forest. The thinner species of bamboo are easy to attack and pull below. She has a fantastic sense of smell and can sniff out the fresh growth through the soil. Bamboo spreads along underground stems. By following these, new shoots are found. Once a shoot is detected, she snips it free and drags it down into her burrow.
This female has a family. At just a few weeks old, the youngsters can already tackle the hardest bamboo stems and are eager to try.
Bamboo's tough reputation is such, that another bamboo specialist was known by the Chinese as, "The Iron Eating Animal".
The giant panda is famous for its exclusive diet.
Giant pandas are thought to have originated in southwest China, millions of years ago, but they are no longer found in Yunnan. Recently, their specialized diet has had dire consequences.
Bamboo has a bizarre life cycle, flowering infrequently, sometimes only once every hundred years or so. But when flowering does occur, it's on a massive scale, and it's followed by the death
of all of the plants. Sometimes an entire bamboo forest may die.
In undisturbed habitat, pandas simply move to another area where a different bamboo species grows. But as human activity has fragmented their forest home, pandas find it increasingly hard to find large enough areas in which to survive. Wild pandas are now found only in the forests of Central China, far to the east.
But in the hidden pockets of lowland jungle in Yunnan's tropical south, live one of China's best-kept wildlife secrets.
DEEP BELLOW
- The wild Asian elephant.
Elephants once roamed across China as far north as Beijing. But it's only in the hidden valleys of Yunnan that they have survived. Elephants are the architects of the forest. Bamboos and grasses are their favorite food but saplings, tree leaves and twisted lianas are all taken, with little care. As they move through the forest, the elephants open up clearings, bringing light to the forest floor. This has a major impact on their home.
The richest forests are now known to be those which from time to time experience change.
The Jinou people are incredibly knowledgeable about their forests and claim to have uses for most of the plants that they find there. They have names for them all, those good for eating and some which even have strong medicinal qualities. By working here, the Jinou play a similar role to the elephants, opening up the forest, bringing space, light and diversity. Green, fast growing species are encouraged. Insects are in high abundance here, together with the animals that feed on them.
Knowledge of the forest enables the Jinou to find not just plants, but other tasty forest food too. Forest crabs are common here, feeding on the abundant leaf litter. This will be a tasty addition to the evening meal.
Flowing through Yunnan's southern valleys, the once angry rivers are now swollen, their waters slow and warm.
These fertile lowland valleys are the home of the Dai. The "People of the Water" live along streams which originate in the surrounding hills. Each family keeps a kitchen garden modeled on the multi-layered structure of the surrounding forests, which the Dai hold sacred.
The gardens are made more productive by inter-planting different crops. Tall, sun-loving species give shelter to plants which thrive in the shade. As companions, the plants grow better.
Yunnan's forests are home to more than a dozen wild banana species and banana crops grow well in most Dai gardens. The huge banana flowers are rich in nectar for only two hours a day, but it's enough to attract a range of forest insects, including hornets.
With their razor sharp mandibles, they find it easy to rob the flowers of their nectar. But hornets are predators too. They hunt other insects and carry them back to their nest.
An ideal target, but this grasshopper is no easy meal. There may be a price to pay.
The Dai men, Po and Xue Ming, take advantage of a hunter's instincts.
A hornet sting is agony. But for now it's distracted, intent on cutting away a piece of grasshopper small enough to carry back home -Success!
The white feather hardly slows the hornet, and, more importantly, it can be seen. Now the hunter is the hunted. So long as Po and Xue Ming can keep up!
Back at the nest, the other hornets immediately begin to cut the feather free. But it's too late. The nest's location has been betrayed.
The relationship between the forest animals and the people who live here was never one of harmony. Yet the fact that the Dai and other ethnic groups considered these forests to be sacred, has ensured their survival and now many have been given extra protection as nature reserves.
Ingenuity and hard work pays off at last. The fattened larvae are considered a delicacy by the Dai.
Although these forests have experienced a great deal of change, they are still host to some ancient and incredible relationships.
Almost 60 centimeters high, this is the immense flower of the Elephant yam. Locals call it the "Witch of the Forest".
As the stars rise, the witch begins to cast her spell. The forest temperature drops, but the flower starts to heat up. A heat sensitive camera reveals the flower's temperature rising by an incredible ten degrees Celsius. At the same time, a noxious stench of rotting flesh fills the forest air. As the flower's heat increases, a cloud of odor rises up. The foul perfume carries far and wide. It doesn't go unnoticed. Carrion beetles arrive on the scene. The beetles come in search of a feast of warm decaying flesh, but they've been tricked. Slippery sides ensure they tumble straight into the centre of the monster flower. There's not enough room to spread their wings and the waxy walls ensure that there's no escape. But there's nothing sinister in the flower's agenda. The beetles will be its unwitting helpers.
Dawn arrives, but the flower remains unchanged, holding its captives through the day. As the second night falls, the witch stirs again. In a matter of minutes, the flower's precious golden pollen squeezes from the stamens and begins to fall, showering onto the captive beetles below.
Now, at last, the prisoners are free to go. The flower's wall changes texture, becoming rough to provide the ideal escape ladder. Loaded with their pollen parcels, they can now climb to freedom, just as other forest witches are beginning to open. Seduced by the irresistible perfume, the beetles are sure to pay a visit, so ensuring pollination, and another generation of incredibly big, smelly flowers.
As dawn arrives, forest birds claim their territories in the canopy.
BIRDSONG
But there's one call which stands out among the rest -virtuoso of the forest symphony.
STRANGE CALL RINGS OUT
It's a gibbon.
UNDULATING CALL CONTINUES
Living on a remote mountain range in south central Yunnan is one of the few remaining wild gibbon populations in China.
- The black-crested gibbons of Wuliangshan.
They are confined to these forest mountains, so remote and steep that few hunters ever come here. The Wuliangshan gibbons are unusual for their social structure. Most gibbons live in small family groups consisting of a mating pair and their offspring. But these gibbons exist in troops. One male can have two or sometimes three females and all of these can have young.
Often even the juveniles stay in the community.
BABY SQUEAKS
Rarely glimpsed, this baby may be only a day old. If it survives infancy, then it has a promising future in these few valleys with its close-knit family.
GIBBON CALLS RING OUT
Gibbon song once inspired the ancient poets of China, their glorious calls echoing far across the hills. But now, new, strangely quiet forests have come to Yunnan. These trees are here to produce an important and valuable crop.
When the tree bark is scored, it yields copious sticky sap, so bitter and tacky that nothing can feed on it. It's the tree's natural defense against attack. It's collected daily, bowl by bowl. It will be boiled and processed into one of the most important materials to a fast developing nation - rubber.
The expansion of the rubber forests began in the '50s when China, under a world rubber embargo, had to become self-sufficient in this vital product. Beijing turned to the only place where rubber could grow, the tropical south of Yunnan.
With efficiency and speed, some of the world's richest forests were torn up and burned.
- Replaced with mile upon mile of rubber plantation.
But there was a problem for the rubber growers. While Yunnan's unique natural forests can survive on the valley slopes which stretch to the north.....just one severe frost will kill off these delicate rubber trees. So Yunnan's terrain puts a limit on how far the plantations can spread, halting at least their northwards advance.
The jungles of Yunnan are increasingly under pressure.
HORN BEEPS
New roads crisscross the tiny remnant forests, the infrastructure needed for trade, industry and, increasingly, tourism.
It's a meeting of two very different worlds.
ELEPHANT TRUMPETS
That elephants still exist in China is remarkable considering the immense pressures in the world's most highly populated country. The 250 or so wild elephants which still live here are now strictly protected. And each year young are born to the small herds.
If elephants were to survive anywhere in China, it could only have been here, in Yunnan. The same mountains which guide the monsoon rains north and which made Joseph Rock's journeys so
treacherous, also guarded Yunnan's forests and its wildlife.
ELEPHANTS GRUNT AND TRUMPET
For the moment, the mountains are still carpeted in a rich green, deceptive in its simplicity. Below the canopy lies perhaps China's richest natural treasure. Delicate and unique, a complex world of intricate relationships between animals, plants and people, beneath the clouds.
Tibet
The Tibetan plateau is a quarter of China.
Much of it is extremely remote and inhospitable. Its southern border runs through the world's highest mountain range, the formidable Himalayas. Its central part is a windswept and freezing wilderness the size of Western Europe. But this challenging place is home to incredible wildlife. There are more large creatures here than anywhere else in China.
Tibet has been a province of China for more than 50 years, yet it has a unique character, shaped by over 1,000 years of Tibetan Buddhism. This obscure and archaic looking religion has produced one of the most enlightened cultures on earth. Here people have a long tradition of co-existing peacefully with the creatures and landscape around them, a relationship, which has helped to protect their fragile environment.
In this program, we will discover why this harsh land with its ancient culture is vitally important for much of our planet.
It’s the beginning of winter, high up on the Tibetan plateau. The temperature will soon drop to minus 40 Celsius. Out here, life is reduced to a single imperative. -Survival.
For the argali, the world's largest sheep, it means searching for a few tufts of grass. Descending from the hilltops to lower altitudes, the argali band together for safety.
Hopefully, down here they'll be able to find enough food to last them through the rest of the winter. Although this winter landscape looks barren and forbidding, Tibet's remote grasslands support a surprising variety of creatures, though at this time of year they can be hard to track down.
By comparison, Tibet's capital Lhasa is a hive of activity. Lhasa is a focus for large numbers of pilgrims who congregate at the city's temples each day.
Tibet is home to over two-and-a-half million people, most of whom are deeply religious.
Though Tibetan Buddhist worship centers on elaborate temples, statues and images, its beliefs are intimately linked with the wild landscapes of Tibet.
The starting point for that relationship is the mountain range that runs along Tibet's southern border. Over3000, kilometers long, the Himalayas are China's real Great Wall. With hundreds of peaks over 7000, meters and 13 peaks higher than 8000 meters, they are the highest mountains on earth.
The Tibetan region contains over 3500 glaciers that cover over 100,000 square kilometers. They comprise the largest area of ice outside the Polar Regions, and nearly a sixth of the world's total. These glaciers are the source of most of the water in the region.
And the Tibetan plateau is studded with glacial lakes. At over 4500metres up, Lake Manasarovar, in the far west of Tibet, is the highest freshwater lake in the world.
In late spring the chilly lake waters are a magnet for breeding birds. The crested grebe woos