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Rainforest rangers become experts through continuous on-the-job learning

(People's Daily Online) 14:21, June 02, 2022

Wang Jinping and Wang Chengkai, two forest rangers at the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in south China’s Hainan Province, have become experts in their fields after not only remaining steadfast in the dedication they have shown to their duties, including preventing forest fires and averting poaching activities, but have also meanwhile continued advancing their learning about various ecosystems inside the rainforest, including those supporting various bird and plant species.

Wang Chun, a forest ranger, smells a tree. (Chinanews.com/Yin Haiming)

In the thick and tangled tropical rainforest, birds are hardly visible to the naked eye. However, Wang Chengkai can tell the names of various birds inhabiting the rainforest by just listening to the sounds they make.

“Of the more than 250 species of birds that we monitor at the Yinggeling section of the park, I can distinguish between the sounds made by about half of them,” the man said, adding that thanks to improvements to the rainforest’s ecosystem, Pericrocotus Flammeus, which previously could only be found in places located at an elevation of above 800 meters, nowadays has been spotted in places located at an elevation of 200 meters.

Wang Jinping (left) and Wang Chengkai (right) talk with each other and trade knowledge about birds inhabiting the Yinggeling section of the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in south China’s Hainan Province. (Chinanews.com/Yin Haiming)

There are altogether eight forest rangers on Wang Chengkai’s team, who jointly protect more than 20,000 mu (about 13.33 square kilometers) of tropical rainforest. Besides, everyone has picked up some expertise along the way, or hopes to acquire knowledge in a certain field, such as knowledge about plants, birds, and fish.

While simultaneously serving as farmers, the forest rangers have devoted persistent and diligent efforts in striving to become professionals. They patrol the rainforest 22 days a month, with the longest distance for a single-day trek reaching more than 15 kilometers along a mountainous route.

Apart from being forest rangers, Wang Chengkai is also a tropical rainforest guide, who introduces the local ecological culture and knowledge about the rainforest to students on study tours. He said more and more students and tourists will come to visit the tropical rainforest in the future, which means more tour guides will be needed.

Wang Chengkai introduces the Hopea hainanensis, a plant under first-class state protection in China, inside the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park in south China’s Hainan Province. (Chinanews.com/Yin Haiming)

Wang Chengkai (left) and Wang Chaomin look at the Asplenium nidus L., a plant which grows by rooting itself to a tree. (Chinanews.com/Yin Haiming)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)

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