KUNMING, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- At the height of summer, tourists flock to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) in southwest China's Yunnan Province, posing for photos atop giant water lilies or joining hands around the massive trunks of towering rainforest trees.
Behind the visitor-friendly spectacle, the botanical garden in Yunnan's Xishuangbanna region is also advancing international efforts to protect elephants in Laos, leopards in Sri Lanka and biodiversity across tropical Asia. It is where scientists from across Asia and beyond gather to study tropical plants and the natural habitats of large mammals, to better guide conservation efforts.
The botanical garden, under the Chinese Academy of Sciences currently, hosts 111 international researchers and students. Though only a small fraction of China's landmass lies in the tropics, the institute is helping train a new generation of researchers to safeguard rainforests across the world.
Jose Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, a Spanish researcher at XTBG, hailed the institute as "a very good bridge" between China's conservation efforts and the broader tropical world.
FERTILE GROUND FOR TROPICAL RESEARCH
When Campos-Arceiz first set foot in the tropical rainforests of Xishuangbanna two decades ago for short-term training as a wildlife biologist, he knew he would one day return. Few places, he said, offered a better natural laboratory for studying tropical plants and wildlife.
The Spanish researcher now leads XTBG's Wildlife Interactions & Conservation team, having joined the institute for long-term research in 2020. His team studies how elephants select food, how their activities reshape forest structures, and more broadly, how plant diversity underpins the survival of large mammals.
Asian elephants rely heavily on rainforest vegetation for food, shelter and migration routes. Xishuangbanna's rich and well-preserved plant diversity provides the ecological foundation for studying Asian elephants and other large mammals, the researcher said.
The 1,125-hectare botanical garden preserves 250 hectares of intact primary rainforest and is home to more than 14,000 plant species, offering an exceptional natural laboratory for scientific research.
Moreover, China's achievements in Asian elephant conservation are widely considered worth studying. The country has established 11 nature reserves across wild Asian elephant habitats. In Yunnan, more than 800 hectares of land have been set aside to grow vegetation favored by elephants. Thanks to decades of active conservation, China's wild Asian elephant population has risen from about 150 in the 1980s to nearly 400 today.
Campos-Arceiz attributed the progress to China's investment in funding, technology and scientific talent, as well as a comprehensive conservation approach that combines early-warning systems, compensation mechanisms for wildlife-related losses and protective infrastructure to reduce human-elephant encounters.
Another factor that drew him to Xishuangbanna was its location along China's borders with Southeast Asia, making it an ideal base for cross-border conservation research.
Yunnan's experience in promoting coexistence between humans and elephants can provide valuable lessons for neighboring countries such as Laos and Myanmar, he said.
Not long ago, Campos-Arceiz's team was invited to Sri Lanka to help tackle another thorny conservation challenge -- leopards whose habitats overlap with tea plantations.
In Sri Lanka, tea is a vital source of livelihood for millions of residents. Yet many plantations are located within or adjacent to leopard habitats, fueling long-standing conflicts between humans and the endangered predators and, in some cases, leading to leopard deaths.
Past efforts to protect tea production often relied on clearing forests and driving away leopards. Drawing on China's experience in balancing ecological protection with economic development and community livelihoods, the team introduced an ecosystem-based solution, said Fang Chunyan, a researcher in Campos-Arceiz's team.
Using advanced vegetation planning techniques, researchers are restoring native food resources and creating ecological buffer zones between leopard habitats and tea plantations, while preserving complete corridors that allow the animals to move safely through the landscape.
Beyond Sri Lanka, the team has continued to refine its cross-border Asian elephant conservation strategies, providing scientific support for wildlife protection and ecosystem conservation across the Lancang-Mekong region, Fang said.
TRAINING GROUND FOR GLOBAL RESEARCHERS
Over the years, the botanical garden has trained scientists from countries grappling with conservation challenges similar to China's. It regularly enrolls master's and doctoral students from South and Southeast Asian countries and offers specialized programs on tropical ecology and biodiversity conservation.
Indonesian postdoctoral researcher Try Surya Harapan arrived at the botanical garden in 2021 to study Asian elephants and rhinoceroses. "Few botanical gardens in Asia have the infrastructure and expertise to support research on both tropical plants and large mammals," Harapan said.
During his time in China, he developed a comprehensive framework for mitigating human-wildlife conflict tailored to tropical developing countries. He has since been invited to feed his findings into Indonesia's national conservation strategy, bringing home the knowledge and practices he gained in China.
Duangphachan Souvansai, from the National University of Laos, has been studying Asian elephant populations and habitat vegetation in Xishuangbanna since 2023.
"China's mature ecological protection system offers valuable lessons for Laos," he said, noting that Laos and Xishuangbanna share similar climates, landscapes and cross-border elephant migration routes.
Behind these training programs lies an extensive network of international scientific collaboration. Over the years, XTBG has grown into a globally connected hub for ecological research and conservation, forging partnerships with institutions in more than 50 countries, regions and international organizations.
The garden maintains long-term ties with universities, forestry agencies and environmental institutions in countries including Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, collaborating on cross-border plant surveys, rare species conservation, rainforest restoration and long-term forest monitoring.
XTBG has also signed bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding with more than 20 partners across Asia, Europe, and Oceania, advancing frontier research in tropical biology through knowledge-sharing platforms, cross-border joint scientific projects, and coordinated biodiversity conservation initiatives, according to Xing Yaowu, director of the botanical garden.
The work at XTBG reflects China's broader vision of ecological progress. The country has woven ecological progress into its five-year development plans and made "Beautiful China" a key goal in building a modern socialist country in all respects.
Campos-Arceiz believes the impact of XTBG's international talent-training model will become clearer over the next 20 to 30 years. As returning scholars launch research programs and mentor young scientists in their home countries, they are expected to build lasting scientific capacity for tropical ecological research across the developing world. ■
