Three hundred artificially-cultivated rare plants were planted during a tree planting activity at the Yangtze River Rare Plant Cultivation Base of China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG) in Yichang, Central China's Hubei Province, on March 1.
Volunteers plant rare seedlings cultivated by the Yangtze River Rare Plant Cultivation Base of China Three Gorges Corporation in Yichang, Central China's Hubei Province, on March 1. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]
Huang Guiyun, head of the base affiliated to CTG, explained that returning the rare plants to nature is a system project which includes wildness acclimatization research and exploration of the flowering and fruiting of the returned plants, while at the same time carrying out habitat and diversity research to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and ensure the returned plants can naturally flourish.
As a professional institute for conservation and research of rare plants in the Three Gorges Dam area, the Yangtze River Rare Plant Cultivation Base has been carrying out field surveys, relocation and in situ conservation of plant diversity in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River for more than 20 years.
The institute has built China's first conservation area for the minimal population of Rhamnus, and rescued and protected more than 230,000 rare and endangered plants of 1,380 kinds, with a survival rate of more than 90 percent.
The base also conducted plant cultivation research, overcoming cultivation difficulties of nearly 100 kinds of rare plants and cultivating more than 230,000 rare seedlings.
What's more, the base returned the cultivated rare and endangered plants to the wild, which realized their natural growth in the Three Gorges Dam area and contributed to protection and restoration of the biodiversity on both sides of the Yangtze River.
(Executive editor: Xie Yunxiao)
