Music
Hutcheon: These ancient mountains once held treasures; a rich cornucopia of animals; eagles, monkeys, even say some of the villagers, wild tigers.
FX: Wildlife
Hutcheon: But since the founding of new China almost 50 years ago, these hills have been plundered through greed and selfishness.
Hutcheon: Far from China’s urban heart, an unique scientist, Professor Pan Wenshi is taking us on a journey. A journey to discover how he can save a rare and illusive creature.
The Professor is a rare breed himself; a biologist and wildlife activist in a country that in some places still struggles to feed and clothe its people.
Hutcheon: Professor Pan Wenshi knows how to win over party leaders and peasants alike.
Prof: Will you stay here tonight?Man: Yes, I will sleep here.Prof: I’ll stay here tonight, too.
Hutcheon: The Professor spent 13 years studying the social habits of pandas, a driving force behind their increasing numbers. He’s one of few people who believes China’s dwindling wildlife is well worth preserving.
But there’s much to be done, as rapid industrialisation shrinks the natural environment day by day.
Professor: Darwin wrote about his travels around the world — he wrote a diary aboard The Beagle.
After reading his diary I thought it would be interesting to be a scientist like him — to go to places that nobody had been to, to learn about new ways of life. I decided it was what I would pursue in science.
FX: Wildlife
Hutcheon: We’ve come to this remote county, just a hundred kilometres from Vietnam, in search of the illusive white-headed leaf monkey, under threat despite years as a protected species. It lives in this southern Chinese province and nowhere else in the world.
Finally our first glimpse. A family of leaf-eating primates living amongst rocks and trees for camouflage, and well out of reach of human hands.
The cries of hungry youngsters fill the morning air.
FX: Monkeys
Hutcheon: It wasn’t long ago these monkeys cried for a different reason.
Professor: I read in a book that one person alone shot more than ninety or a hundred monkeys in the ‘50s and ‘60s, before they became protected. So poaching is a very serious problem.
In conservation zones, poaching is forbidden but in some unprotected areas, it’s still a problem. Even now, poaching occurs in some remote areas.
Hutcheon: In a nearby mountain village, the peasants once recounted folktales about their famous monkeys, of small children preferring life in the trees to life on the ground.
But the stories have all but disappeared. Now the talk is of how to get rich.
Grandpa Lu: Long life! Long life!
Professor: Today I’m paying you another visit. Let me introduce to you an Australian reporter — her name is Miss Hutcheon. This is a gift for you — some wine!Grandpa Lu: You’re giving this to me?Professor: Do you like it?
Hutcheon: Grandpa Lu is one of a handful of villagers who remembers the time before the Communist Revolution, when monkeys were plentiful. His recollections are important for the Professor’s research.
Grandpa Lu: There were more monkeys in the past. Before being protected the monkeys in a neighbouring village were often killed in the evenings. That’s why there are so few monkeys left.
Hutcheon: Why were they poaching? What were they using the monkeys for?
Grandpa Lu: Some would sell the monkeys and others would use them to make alcohol. I just heard about this. I don’t know anything else.
Hutcheon: Grandpa Lu is afraid to reveal how local villagers once made a medicinal wine from the rare white-headed monkeys.
The local government, keen to promote its conservation image, orders the local distiller to reveal the potent old recipe.
Wu Rongfang: After peeling the skin of the monkey, people would dry the bones in the sun. Afterwards, they would put the bones in a jay containing wine.
Ironically, it was the turbulent decade of the cultural revolution that smashed the last vials of monkey wine.
That period of destruction might be over, but the primates remain as besieged as ever.
Professor: The Chinese government has already realised the importance of protecting animals, but they can’t carry out the measures properly. Because conservation will hurt the economic interests of humans. People in some areas need to eat, so the protection cannot be carried out properly.
Ever since the new Party Secretary came to town three years ago Chongzuo County’s prosperity has been steadily rising.
The county is in the midst of a building boom, using a natural abundance of rock to make gravel and limestone for construction.
And the Party Secretary has told the county the road to wealth leads here; to the gates of the sugar refinery.
In five years, the county claims the average income has jumped by almost two hundred percent, all due to sticks of cane... crushed for their juice and then crystallised into sugar.
Party Secretary: It’s very convenient for the peasants, what’s more, it’s suitable for the market economy.
The Party Secretary’s initiative has turned every piece of land into cane-fields, even the land inside the county’s conservatio zone where the monkeys live. The production team is busy planting the spring crop, but they can’t stop encroaching on the monkey’s habitat.
Nong Huijie: We have no choice. We used to plant cassava and corn, but we didn’t earn very much. The government asked us to plant sugar cane so we could have a higher income.
As a result of the teams’s increased wealth, peasants like Nong Huijie can comfortably feed and clothe their families. His mother supplements the household income, using a home-made press to make cotton padding.
But he and the other peasants still cut down the trees for fuel, trees that shelter and feed the white-headed monkey.
Nong Huijie: I use firewood to make a fire, to cook and to keep warm. I cut down some small trees at the bottom of the mountains and we keep the big trees.
Unitil recently the peasants did more than cut down trees. They blasted whole faces out of the mountains.
But the blasting stopped once the monkey’s habitat was declared a conservation zone.
FX: Monkeys
Hutcheon: The primates have started to breed again, but as their space constricts, their movements have become restricted. Their gene stock is weakened by in-breeding, another threat to their besieged existence.
According to the Professor, the survival of the monkeys is far from guaranteed. He believes the key is to invest in protection through tourism; to use the monkeys to save themselves.
Professor: My idea is to make this environment more beautiful — to have plants. If it’s possible to develop tourism — ecological tourism — then we can use it to help the peasants have a good life — and the government as well. The government can use the revenue gained from tourism to invest in protection.
For the Professor’s plans to be successful farming within the conservation zone has to stop and that involves the entire livelihood of the production team. But he’s convinced that peasants Mr Huijie like will support his plan if they’re given land elsewhere.
The government will rent your land and pay you the money gained from tourism. This income will be higher than the money you get from sugarcane and the monkey population will increase. Nong Huijie: Will the government do this. Professor: I will persuade them but first will you do this?Nong Huijie: Sure we’d love to. If the government needs our land we’ll give it to them.
He has the peasants on side but now its the county administration he has to convince. He goes straight to the top to Chongzuo’s county secretary, the man who made the county richer.
Professor: The monkey’s children are eating. He stands on guard - if he thinks there is danger, he’ll make this sound oow, oow. Wei Junlin: I see, it’s like a signal..Professor: .. or this.. eew, eew.- there are two types. And if he’s in real danger, he goes wow, wow, and all his children and wives will hide in the forest. He’ll stand over there and go weow, weow. It’s very interesting.
His point is that the county needs to start a comprehensive protection plan this year, a plan that involves the government, the peasants and widespread education. The party secretary appears very supportive.
Professor Pan appears to have convinced the party secretary to accept his plan. Now he wants to ensure the younger generation understands the importance of protecting the animals. The monkeys are a national priority but environmental issues make a rare appearance in the school curriculum.
Professor: We will keep this treasure for you and your responsibility is to keep it for the next generation as a kind of cultural heritage.
The children have heard of efforts to save China’s most famous protected species, the giant panda, but not the rare creature on their doorstep. In a country where wildlife protection plays second fiddle to the whims of enterprise and gourmands and money hungry poachers, Professor Pan’s wish is to set an example.
Professor: It might be difficult but I think we have to try because in order to turn this plan into reality people need to get a new idea into their heads - a new way of thinking. We should create an example. If this plan can be successful in Chongzuo other counties will see our success and learn from it.
Music
Hutcheon: The monkeys come down from the mountain to take a closer look at us humans. They’re curious, like we are.
If the county accepts the Professor’s challenge, some day the monkeys could be leaping down in their hundreds.
Music
Hutcheon: These ancient mountains once held treasures; a rich cornucopia of animals; eagles, monkeys, even say some of the villagers, wild tigers.
FX: Wildlife
Hutcheon: But since the founding of new China almost 50 years ago, these hills have been plundered through greed and selfishness.
Hutcheon: Far from China’s urban heart, an unique scientist, Professor Pan Wenshi is taking us on a journey. A journey to discover how he can save a rare and illusive creature.
The Professor is a rare breed himself; a biologist and wildlife activist in a country that in some places still struggles to feed and clothe its people.
Hutcheon: Professor Pan Wenshi knows how to win over party leaders and peasants alike.
Prof: Will you stay here tonight?Man: Yes, I will sleep here.Prof: I’ll stay here tonight, too.
Hutcheon: The Professor spent 13 years studying the social habits of pandas, a driving force behind their increasing numbers. He’s one of few people who believes China’s dwindling wildlife is well worth preserving.
But there’s much to be done, as rapid industrialisation shrinks the natural environment day by day.
Professor: Darwin wrote about his travels around the world — he wrote a diary aboard The Beagle.
After reading his diary I thought it would be interesting to be a scientist like him — to go to places that nobody had been to, to learn about new ways of life. I decided it was what I would pursue in science.
FX: Wildlife
Hutcheon: We’ve come to this remote county, just a hundred kilometres from Vietnam, in search of the illusive white-headed leaf monkey, under threat despite years as a protected species. It lives in this southern Chinese province and nowhere else in the world.
Finally our first glimpse. A family of leaf-eating primates living amongst rocks and trees for camouflage, and well out of reach of human hands.
The cries of hungry youngsters fill the morning air.
FX: Monkeys
Hutcheon: It wasn’t long ago these monkeys cried for a different reason.
Professor: I read in a book that one person alone shot more than ninety or a hundred monkeys in the ‘50s and ‘60s, before they became protected. So poaching is a very serious problem.
In conservation zones, poaching is forbidden but in some unprotected areas, it’s still a problem. Even now, poaching occurs in some remote areas.
Hutcheon: In a nearby mountain village, the peasants once recounted folktales about their famous monkeys, of small children preferring life in the trees to life on the ground.
But the stories have all but disappeared. Now the talk is of how to get rich.
Grandpa Lu: Long life! Long life!
Professor: Today I’m paying you another visit. Let me introduce to you an Australian reporter — her name is Miss Hutcheon. This is a gift for you — some wine!Grandpa Lu: You’re giving this to me?Professor: Do you like it?
Hutcheon: Grandpa Lu is one of a handful of villagers who remembers the time before the Communist Revolution, when monkeys were plentiful. His recollections are important for the Professor’s research.
Grandpa Lu: There were more monkeys in the past. Before being protected the monkeys in a neighbouring village were often killed in the evenings. That’s why there are so few monkeys left.
Hutcheon: Why were they poaching? What were they using the monkeys for?
Grandpa Lu: Some would sell the monkeys and others would use them to make alcohol. I just heard about this. I don’t know anything else.
Hutcheon: Grandpa Lu is afraid to reveal how local villagers once made a medicinal wine from the rare white-headed monkeys.
The local government, keen to promote its conservation image, orders the local distiller to reveal the potent old recipe.
Wu Rongfang: After peeling the skin of the monkey, people would dry the bones in the sun. Afterwards, they would put the bones in a jay containing wine.
Ironically, it was the turbulent decade of the cultural revolution that smashed the last vials of monkey wine.
That period of destruction might be over, but the primates remain as besieged as ever.
Professor: The Chinese government has already realised the importance of protecting animals, but they can’t carry out the measures properly. Because conservation will hurt the economic interests of humans. People in some areas need to eat, so the protection cannot be carried out properly.
Ever since the new Party Secretary came to town three years ago Chongzuo County’s prosperity has been steadily rising.
The county is in the midst of a building boom, using a natural abundance of rock to make gravel and limestone for construction.
And the Party Secretary has told the county the road to wealth leads here; to the gates of the sugar refinery.
In five years, the county claims the average income has jumped by almost two hundred percent, all due to sticks of cane... crushed for their juice and then crystallised into sugar.
Party Secretary: It’s very convenient for the peasants, what’s more, it’s suitable for the market economy.
The Party Secretary’s initiative has turned every piece of land into cane-fields, even the land inside the county’s conservatio zone where the monkeys live. The production team is busy planting the spring crop, but they can’t stop encroaching on the monkey’s habitat.
Nong Huijie: We have no choice. We used to plant cassava and corn, but we didn’t earn very much. The government asked us to plant sugar cane so we could have a higher income.
As a result of the teams’s increased wealth, peasants like Nong Huijie can comfortably feed and clothe their families. His mother supplements the household income, using a home-made press to make cotton padding.
But he and the other peasants still cut down the trees for fuel, trees that shelter and feed the white-headed monkey.
Nong Huijie: I use firewood to make a fire, to cook and to keep warm. I cut down some small trees at the bottom of the mountains and we keep the big trees.
Unitil recently the peasants did more than cut down trees. They blasted whole faces out of the mountains.
But the blasting stopped once the monkey’s habitat was declared a conservation zone.
FX: Monkeys
Hutcheon: The primates have started to breed again, but as their space constricts, their movements have become restricted. Their gene stock is weakened by in-breeding, another threat to their besieged existence.
According to the Professor, the survival of the monkeys is far from guaranteed. He believes the key is to invest in protection through tourism; to use the monkeys to save themselves.
Professor: My idea is to make this environment more beautiful — to have plants. If it’s possible to develop tourism — ecological tourism — then we can use it to help the peasants have a good life — and the government as well. The government can use the revenue gained from tourism to invest in protection.
For the Professor’s plans to be successful farming within the conservation zone has to stop and that involves the entire livelihood of the production team. But he’s convinced that peasants Mr Huijie like will support his plan if they’re given land elsewhere.
The government will rent your land and pay you the money gained from tourism. This income will be higher than the money you get from sugarcane and the monkey population will increase. Nong Huijie: Will the government do this. Professor: I will persuade them but first will you do this?Nong Huijie: Sure we’d love to. If the government needs our land we’ll give it to them.
He has the peasants on side but now its the county administration he has to convince. He goes straight to the top to Chongzuo’s county secretary, the man who made the county richer.
Professor: The monkey’s children are eating. He stands on guard - if he thinks there is danger, he’ll make this sound oow, oow. Wei Junlin: I see, it’s like a signal..Professor: .. or this.. eew, eew.- there are two types. And if he’s in real danger, he goes wow, wow, and all his children and wives will hide in the forest. He’ll stand over there and go weow, weow. It’s very interesting.
His point is that the county needs to start a comprehensive protection plan this year, a plan that involves the government, the peasants and widespread education. The party secretary appears very supportive.
Professor Pan appears to have convinced the party secretary to accept his plan. Now he wants to ensure the younger generation understands the importance of protecting the animals. The monkeys are a national priority but environmental issues make a rare appearance in the school curriculum.
Professor: We will keep this treasure for you and your responsibility is to keep it for the next generation as a kind of cultural heritage.
The children have heard of efforts to save China’s most famous protected species, the giant panda, but not the rare creature on their doorstep. In a country where wildlife protection plays second fiddle to the whims of enterprise and gourmands and money hungry poachers, Professor Pan’s wish is to set an example.
Professor: It might be difficult but I think we have to try because in order to turn this plan into reality people need to get a new idea into their heads - a new way of thinking. We should create an example. If this plan can be successful in Chongzuo other counties will see our success and learn from it.
Music
Hutcheon: The monkeys come down from the mountain to take a closer look at us humans. They’re curious, like we are.
If the county accepts the Professor’s challenge, some day the monkeys could be leaping down in their hundreds.
Music