A conference of the parties of the Ramsar Convention on the protection of wetlands is held in Wuhan until November 13. Beijing prides itself on having created or restored 800,000 hectares of these spaces rich in animal and vegetable cash.
by Frédéric Lemaître, Wuhan (Hubei), Special Envoy
Since July, employees of the Lac Chen nature reserve, 90 kilometers southwest of Wuhan (Hubei) no longer really need twins to observe the thousands of migratory birds which, every fall, come from Russia and take a break on the way to Australia. Thanks to dozens of cameras and microphones installed in this protected wetland, the geeks of their team allow them to control everything remotely.
On the second floor of the small building which houses their offices, the park agents have a huge bay window with a breathtaking view of the 11,579 hectares of protected wetlands which extend at their feet. But it is now on control screens that they study what is happening in this delta formed by the confluence of the Yangtsé river and the Han river. A landscape of marshes, ponds and meadows which extends as far as the eye can see and where 561 species of animals were identified, including 227 species of birds and 56 fish.
Champion of “Smart Cities”, the smart cities, China is embarking on “Smart Nature”. Nothing escapes these ornithologists 2.0. The level and quality of the water, the soils, the air, the temperature but also the number of volatiles per species and the position of each. Just zoom in on one of them so that its characteristics appear. And to connect the microphone to have the feeling that the white spatula, the cormorant or the anadyr beefish are by your side.
Better, as the cameras also observe tourists, ornithologists can tell them in real time where they are allowed to move, depending on the timidity of the species present. “Priority is the bird. Not the tourist,” said Wen Zhuo, one of the reserve officials. “On this scale, I think there is no more perfected system in the world,” said Jim Harkness, an American specializing in biodiversity preservation programs at the National Geographic Society.
This software is only the last step of the progressive transformation of this vast marsh which has long interested fishermen into a “wetland of international importance”, flagship of “ecological civilization” advocated by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. Since 2019, the number of migratory birds has gone there every fall from 30,000 to 85,000, with the presence of rare species like the Dalmatian Pelican or the Bernache goose.
“sponge city”
While the reserve managers show the site to participants of 14 e Conference of the parties to the Ramsar convention on the protection of wetlands, which is held from 5 to 13 November in Wuhan – and, by video, in Geneva – other speakers roam the banks of the Yangtsé in Wuhan, this megalopolis of 11 million inhabitants as large as Corsica.
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