John Mackinnon · Expert of EU-China Biodiversity Program | Challenges in Protecting World Natural Mountain Heritages

EDITOR'S NOTE: On May 29 2021, the main activity of the third International Mountain Tourism Day—the World Heritage Famous Mountain (Jinfo Mountain) Summit kicked off in Nanchuan District, Chongqing Municipality, China successfully. Themed with “World Heritage Protection and Green Development of Mountain Tourism”, the Summit got strong support from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the Global Tourism Economy Forum (GTEF), the Internationale Organisation Für Volkskunst (IOV) and the China Association of National Parks and Scenic Sites. The theme forum presented wonderful contents with high-level opinions, frontier observations and dialogues on trends. The speeches will be released in succession to share with industry colleagues.

John Mackinnon, expert of EU-China Biodiversity Program delivered a speech at the summit:

I'm sorry I can't be physically with you in China today, but I'm happy to join your meeting from the UK where I'm in lockdown.

I would like to share with you today, on some of the issues and challenges that we face in trying to protect mountain sites under world heritage. We love mountains. They're spectacular and there are wonderful adventurous things we can do and there are special fauna and flora.

Protection of mountain species diversity

Mountains contain a lot of cultural heritage; temples, holy sites, holy rocks, holy lakes. China has 12 natural and 4 mixed world heritage sites, many of which are montane but they face a lot of threats. They are isolated. So they have biologically, like islands, they don't have enough connectivity to other sites and as you go higher and higher the habitat patches get smaller and smaller. And of course, if they face a lot of human pressure from local activities or from tourism, growing tourism, this poses threats of disturbance, bringing in alien species, collecting or destroying rare precious things.

The general rule is the further away the mountain is from another block of similar habitat, the fewer species it will have, and the more difficult for new species to recolonize will colonize the site, and the faster the rates of extinction. So, maintaining habitat corridors or even stepping stones to other natural sites is very important. And don't forget that many of the species are only in the mountains in the summer. They are seasonal migrants. In winter, they descend to lower altitudes, maybe far away. But you have to protect the winter refugees outside the mountain reserves if you wish to maintain high species richness and diversity.

The impact of multiple factors on the mountain environment

The world is facing a crisis of climate change. The temperature’s generally getting wetter and warmer but this results in changes in vegetation pattern, moving further and further up mountains and glaciers melt, which is causing changes in the flow of water, sometimes increased flow of water. But that's a temporary thing, sometimes droughts. You can't just jump at higher altitudes to a new climatic situation. Maybe fir forests don't just appear, you have to go through early successional stages, a secondary forest and then finally introduce the primary species that would be suited to the new conditions, and this is an ever-going creeping process.

Mountains have very hard conditions, they could be steep, but they can also be very cold. The habitats in months because of the cold temperature and high elevation, they recover very slowly. So, a habitat that you open up and you maybe develop for something, the lowlands sort of recovers. Nature takes over, plants regrow within a year or two, but up in the mountains, it may take decades or even hundreds of years. Up on the Tibetan Plateau, it would take hundreds of years for disturbed turf, for instance, to recover.

Domestic animals, we think of how domestic animal, but actually they can have a very big impact. The biggest impact would probably be the little white Kashmir goat, which really eat everything. Their hooves dig into the soil, and cause erosion. Domestic animals inside mountain reserves are a bit of a disaster for the natural biota.

Visitors have big impacts. They bring noise, they bring litter, they will disturb - physically walk up to shy wildlife. You need eco-friendly toilets. You need a lot of signage to tell people how to behave. Particularly keep quiet, don't light fires, don't damage vegetation.

Matterhorn Peak at Alps in Canton Valais, Switzerland / Kim Ki Hwan

Local community and tourism development

When we talk about tourism development, we usually take the local community into consideration, they’ve been living around these mountains for hundreds of years, their own heritage. They often have very deep feelings for those places. Whatever you develop, develop it in close relation with the local people. Talk to them, get ideas from them. There are lots of opportunities for co-management involve the local communities. For example, livestock raisers to being a tour guides.

Tourism development and management of Jinfo Mountain

You have caves in Jinfo Mountain and many marked sites. These are very fragile ecologically. Don't open them all up to tourists and lights and music. This will destroy the very delicate organisms that have evolved for living in the dark. So, you bring in light, you change the plant life. A lot of people breathing, releasing carbon dioxide inside a cave changes the pH of the cave. So, most of the cave should be locked up. Let only for very occasional research, maybe one or two of you open up for tourism.

You（Tourism manager）have to find a balance between the carrying capacity of tourists and the ability of the site to sustain that kind of impact. It's not all about money and how to get in more tourists, otherwise we’d turn all these parks into Disneylands and feature parks, that's not the idea. The idea is to protect natural heritage and encourage and allow people to enjoy and appreciate that heritage.

Jinfo Mountain

I'm sure you've discussed many of these things. I hope the scenic splendor is preserved. The ecosystem services are sustained. The biodiversity health is sustained. Local community are happy and enjoying increasing living standards. Visitors are provided opportunity to enjoy their natural heritage.

And finally, I’d like to thank the organizer. Thank you very much and have a wonderful successful meeting.