Haiguo Dialog: Protect old tea trees, protect biodiversity
The 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) is set to take place in Kunming, Yunnan province，as a two-part summit from October 11 to 15, 2021 and in early 2022, respectively.
Sea Pot, a monkey-faced staffer with Yunnan Gateway, has held talks with his friends, many of whom are local conservationists on bio-diversity.
Menghai County in south Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is known as the "first county of Pu'er tea in China".
In the second talk, we have He Qingyuan, director of the Tea Institute at Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the topic is relation between protecting old tea seeds and biodiversity.
Q1: Welcome to our show, Director He! What’re the results in protecting the old tea germplasm in Menghai?
A1: Two major tea species grow in Menghai County: wild tea and cultivated tea. The wild tea comes from Dali and the cultivated tea is represented by the Menghai broad-leaf species.
In the county, the cultivated tea covers 80,551 mu (5,370ha) and the acreage of wild tea species reach127,000 mu.
Q2:How does Menghai use old tea trees as a breakthrough in the protection of biodiversity?
A2: The old tea tree is mixed with other trees in ancient tea gardens. In protecting old tea trees, tea farmers do not use certain pesticides and fertilizers. Nor will they take improper measures. Therefore, the tea gardens are well-balanced in ecology, and the tea trees remain alive for centuries.
Q3: What is the role of biodiversity protection in developing the tea industry in Yunnan?
A3: Left by ancestors, the old tea gardens and trees have formed a balanced system of biodiversity. The Yunnan tea industry is characterized by old tea trees. The province is working on a plan to protect and utilize the tea shrubs, with some protective measures rolled out earlier.
Q4: How significant is the old tea tree in protecting Yunnan’s biodiversity?
A4: Because of their great value in ecology, old tea trees cannot be simply taken as a sideline farm product. Such centuries-old tea trees as grow continuously with other species in a concentrated area, formed a unique and scarce resource in the world. At present, Yunnan should take unified actions to protect the trees first before designing products or using the resource to drive related industries.
By gateway reporters