Harbin Siberian Tiger Reserve
The wiki map site ProtectedPlanet, which shows people what’s in protected areas around the globe, is probably the most concrete thing to come out of the 10th Convention on Biological Diversity that’s going on now in Japan. Search a city and it’ll show you protected areas nearby with a picture and maybe description.
The point is to show how little we know about nearby natural areas, let alone the 150,000 worldwide. Too true. That’s whey there isn’t much on the site now and there’s seemingly no way to directly add it. (The site pulls info from Panoramio, Flickr and Wikipedia.) But they’ll figure it out.
Other things coming out of the convention:
China says it will set up 35 new protected areas, 23% of the county, which would put it ahead of everybody. The overall goal is to stop “biodiversity loss” by 2020. Great goal–just like it was when China set it for 2010. Didn’t happen because of too much poaching, largely for traditional Chinese medicine. Can’t we just start offering free viagra so there’s no need to distill tiger bones?
The world nudges the U.S.: we’re still the only country that hasn’t officially signed the Convention for Biological Diversity treaty. 193 countries have since 1993. There’s nothing controversial about the sustainable growth it endorses, but you can bet it’s not real high on Harry Reid’s to do list right now.
Where to See Wildlife in Asia
Where to See Big Cats
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