COP15 Update in Yunnan, China: The Population of Endangered Species, Green Peafowl, Has Shown Steady Increase

BEIJING–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Phase one of the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China from October 11 to 15, 2021. During the meeting, Yang Xiaojun, a researcher from the Bird Group of Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, introduced that, with great efforts, not only has the wild population of the endangered species, green peafowl, shown steady increase, the quality of their habitat has also been significantly improved. Moreover, the demonstration of the “government-society-community” co-management approach has achieved remarkable results, and the artificial population of the green peafowl has also begun to be built.

Green peafowl is a peafowl species native to China. It was listed as threatened in 1988, as vulnerable in 1994, and upgraded to endangered in 2009 on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

In order to protect and save the wild green peafowl, the Yunnan government listed it as a “Tiny Species” in Yunnan Province in 2009, dedicated special funds and adopted a series of measures to strengthen the protection of the green peafowl and its habitat. Meanwhile, the work on building an artificial breeding base with the help of the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Breeding Center and carrying out research on artificial breeding with the cooperation of relevant scientific research units has achieved preliminary success. After the amount of the artificially bred green peafowl population reaches a certain level, field domestication and other work will kick off, and plans on releasing the green peafowl to the potential distribution area will be made as well.

Thanks to effective protection measures, the population of the green peafowl is steady and rising. Data shows that the Yunnan green peafowl had about 485 to 547 individuals in 2018, and 555 to 600 individuals from 2019 to 2021. Among which the wild green peafowl was most concentrated in the valley areas of the middle and upper Yuanjiang River, where the population is also the largest. According to the results of infrared cameras and video monitoring in several nature reserves, there is a tendency in recent years that some of the areas that the Yunnan green peafowl inhabit are shifting and growing.

Contacts

COP15-China
Contact: Zhao Jian, Li Faxing

Tel: 0086-871-64184120

E-mail: cop15mailbox@mee.gov.cn