However, even so, it is far from making up for the actual losses suffered by the common people. For this reason, the Xishuangbanna Prefecture actively explored and called for the establishment of an effective ecological compensation mechanism to find an ideal solution. In Xishuangbanna, the conflict between villagers around nature reserves and wild animals has always existed, and it is a difficult problem facing the local wildlife protection department.
"This is a good start. In the future, we will promote a more diversified compensation model through various explorations, protecting the interests of the common people to the maximum extent on the basis of protecting wild animals, which can more effectively promote the work of wildlife protection."
Journalist Lin Xia reported that after the trial in Mengla Village where villagers hunted and ate an Indochinese tiger, it immediately triggered great attention to the issues of conflicts between wildlife and humans, as well as the compensation mechanism for damages caused by wildlife. The saying "human life is not as valuable as a tiger's!" became rampant online. Some comments suggested that human lives being less important than tigers' absolutely was not a false proposition; it reflects the severe inequality of rights and obligations of residents around nature reserves.
Da Choushui Village is a village of immigrants. It now has a population of 198 people, with 42 households. In 1975, due to poverty and lack of arable land, dozens of families moved from Mojiang to the junction of Nandun River and Da Choushui River in Man'nasu Village, Mengla, and settled down two years later, naming the village Da Choushui after the river.
In 1998, the tenth year since the issuance of the "Wildlife Protection Law", Xishuangbanna Prefecture fully launched the Natural Forest Protection Project and implemented hunting bans by confiscating guns and hunting tools, effectively protecting local wildlife resources. Private gun ownership among the public has also decreased significantly. In the first half of this year, the Xishuangbanna Public Security Bureau centrally destroyed more than 800 guns confiscated in recent years, some of which were voluntarily surrendered by villagers.
Moreover, every year, several groups of wild elephants come to the village along the Nandun River. Each group has at least seven or eight heads, staying for ten days to half a month. The per capita arable land in the whole village, including mountainous areas, is less than four mu. From January to August or September each year, villagers have to compete with wild elephants for food crops such as rice, corn, and soybeans. A slight negligence may result in no harvest at all. Zhou Zhiming, the head of the village group, said that almost every household suffers different degrees of loss every year. Last year, during one visit by wild elephants, they also destroyed over 700 meters of newly laid water pipes in the village.
On November 26, the second day of the tiger-hunting case trial, the reporter went to Dachoushui Village Group in Mannasuan Village, Mengla Town, where the gunman Kang Wannian lived.
In May this year, Zhang Xiwu, Director of the Wildlife Protection and Nature Reserve Management Department of the State Forestry Administration, stated in a media interview regarding wildlife damage compensation that wildlife are friends of humanity, and protecting them should not just be the government's responsibility but also require more forces to do a good job in compensation, ensuring both the security and prosperity of the masses and promoting wildlife protection.
To reduce the harm caused by wildlife to humans, the government has provided certain economic compensation to affected households over the years. Since the implementation of the wildlife damage compensation mechanism in 1990, until 2008, Xishuangbanna Prefecture had already paid out more than 30 million yuan in wildlife compensation funds.
On November 11, 2009, the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Administration signed a public liability insurance contract for Asian elephants with the Yunnan Branch of the Pacific Property Insurance Company. Starting from January 1 next year, it will be comprehensively promoted throughout Xishuangbanna Prefecture. This means that the wildlife damage compensation mechanism, which has been directly compensated by the government for 19 years, will undergo a beautiful transformation with the beneficial attempt of introducing commercial insurance. Once implemented, this people-benefiting measure will provide more compensation to affected households.
According to statistics, in Xishuangbanna, which occupies only 1/500 of the national land area, there are 756 species of wildlife, accounting for 1/4 of the national wildlife. Among the existing wildlife, 129 species are listed as key protected rare animals at the national level I and II, preserving China's largest wild Asian elephant population and relatively concentrated distributions of other wildlife such as Indian bison, clouded leopards, white-cheeked gibbons, black bears, green peacocks, pythons, and monitor lizards. Areas affected by wildlife incidents not only cover all the nature reserves in the prefecture but also involve some state-owned forest areas and villages.
A police officer engaged in wildlife protection for more than ten years once told the reporter that in the past, border ethnic minorities mainly lived on hunting. "At that time, young women would also look at whether a man could hunt and if he owned a hunting rifle when choosing a partner. If the man couldn't hunt and didn't own a hunting rifle, he wouldn't be able to find a partner because, for them, the hunting rifle was a guarantee of safety, status, and livelihood."
Xishuangbanna lost 233 million yuan in 18 years due to wildlife destruction. To protect wildlife, Xishuangbanna confiscated civilian firearms.
Commercial insurance new model to be implemented next year
According to statistics, from 1991 to 2008, a total of 139,158 farming households in Xishuangbanna Prefecture suffered damages from wildlife such as Asian elephants, black bears, sika deer, wild boars, and muntjacs, losing 7,099.4 kilograms of grain, 5,106 heads of livestock, and 4.379 million economic forest trees, with 183 people injured or killed, resulting in direct economic losses amounting to 233 million yuan, involving nearly 690,000 disaster-affected people.
Meanwhile, the local government departments in Xishuangbanna have also continuously explored ways to protect wildlife and the interests of all ethnic groups, such as building food source bases for Asian elephants, using artificial auxiliary renewal methods to protect and restore habitats, implementing prevention projects, and directly subsidizing food and conducting compensation trials for severely affected areas by Asian elephants, actively seeking financial support for community development, etc.
On the afternoon of the 27th, as soon as the reporter entered the Da Choushui Village, the villagers who attended the trial the previous day asked how many years Kang Wannian would be sentenced. "His two relatives were harmed by wild animals, one dead and one injured, so he is cautious about wild animals. Carrying a gun into the reserve was mainly for self-defense and not specifically to hunt tigers. He just happened to encounter (the tiger). It was nighttime, and he didn't know it was a tiger before firing. Even if he knew it was a tiger, anyone would fire in a face-to-face confrontation with a tiger. Would you let the tiger eat you?!... Therefore, they hope the court can give Kang Wannian a lighter sentence."
Due to wildlife destruction
Animal incident compensation fund
According to the information, in the "Xishuangbanna Asian Elephant Public Liability Insurance Plan" signed by both parties, damages caused by wild Asian elephants within Xishuangbanna Prefecture to people, property, and goods are all included in the insurance scope. The insurance premium is 2.85 million yuan, the maximum compensation limit is 30 million yuan, and the insurance rate reaches 9.5%. This is also the world's first public liability insurance policy for Asian elephants.
The government has fulfilled payments totaling 30 million yuan
"We also know that illegally hiding firearms and hunting tigers is illegal. However, living on the edge of a reserve, we might encounter wild animals every day. How can our safety and rights be guaranteed? Don't say that the law forbids private firearm possession; even if we carry guns, if we encounter a wild animal attack, should we defend ourselves and survive, or choose to leave it to fate?" Regarding the current situation, the villagers feel helpless.
During the interview, the reporter learned that in the eyes of the villagers, Kang Wannian and his family's misfortune is unfortunate.
According to the law, self-defense refers to the act of defending public interest, oneself, or others' personal and other rights by causing some harm to the perpetrator of unlawful aggression. However, regarding this case, Li Shi Yong from Yunnan Daocheng Law Firm believes that nature reserves are the habitats where wildlife survives. Kang Wannian entering the reserve without permission has violated national laws and regulations, and his illegal carrying of firearms also poses a threat to wildlife. Therefore, the claim of self-defense does not stand for him.
After the implementation of the "Wildlife Protection Law" in 1988, people living around the reserves could no longer drive away visiting wildlife violently. With the increase in wildlife populations, the expansion of their activity ranges, and changes in their habitat environments, conflicts between humans and wildlife have intensified. Frequent occurrences include wildlife damaging crops, tea gardens, rubber plantations, and orchards of the local people, as well as incidents of destroying residential houses and injuring people.
Should one defend oneself when encountering a beast or leave it to fate?
This year, the total investment in wildlife incident compensation in Xishuangbanna Prefecture is 5.57 million yuan, including compensation for grains, cash crops, livestock, poultry, and casualties, raising the compensation fulfillment standard from the original 8% to 20%, increasing the price of rice from the original 0.05 yuan per jin to 0.5 yuan per jin, and the price of rubber trees from the original 0.2 yuan per tree to 1.5 yuan per tree. There have also been significant increases in compensation for livestock like cattle and pigs and casualties. For instance, medical expenses are fully covered for the injured, and a one-time payment of 80,000 yuan per person is made for those who died. "Last year, our entire village received about 20,000 yuan in compensation, nearly ten times what it used to be," said Zhou Zhiming, head of the Da Choushui Village Group.
The entire Da Choushui Village is adjacent to the reserve. At the end of 1995, to cooperate with the nature reserve protection work, the whole village moved again to settle 1 kilometer downstream of the Da Choushui River. Even so, the village is still just a wall away from the primeval forest of the reserve. Every year, several cows raised by the villagers mysteriously disappear. Because it cannot be proven that the missing cows were eaten by large wild animals, they cannot receive compensation for wildlife incidents. However, the villagers have always believed that large wild animals like tigers and leopards are responsible.
However, the Da Choushui Village Group is only one of the many village groups close to the reserve in the entire Xishuangbanna Prefecture. It is understood that the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve spans one city and two counties: Menghai, Mengla, and Jinghong, involving 31 townships, one subdistrict office, 225 village committees, and 2213 village groups. It consists of five disconnected sub-reserves: Mengyang, Menglun, Mengla, Shangyong, and Mangao, with a total area of 242,510 hectares, accounting for 12.68% of the total land area of the prefecture.
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