美丽中国—龙之心.doc

The heart of the dragon The last hidden world, China. For centuries,travelers to China have told tales of magical landscapes and surprising creatures. Chinese civilization is the world’s oldest, and today it’s largest with well over a billion people. It’s home to more than fifty distinct ethnic groups五十个民族and a wide range of traditional life styles often in close partnership with nature. We know that China faces immense social and environmental problems, but there is great beauty here too. China is home to the world’s highest mountains, vast deserts ranging from from searing hot to mind numbing cold, steaming forests harboring rare creatures, grassy plains beneath vast horizons, and rich tropical seas. Now, for the first time ever, we can explore the whole of this great country, meet some of the surprising and exotic creatures that live here, and consider the relationship of the people and wildlife of China to the remarkable landscaping which they live. This is wild China. Our exploration of china begins in the warm subtropical south. On the li river fishermen and birds perch on bamboo rafts, a partnership goes back more than a thousand years. This scenery is known throughout the world, a recurring motif in Chinese paintings and a major tourist attraction. The south of china is a vast area eight times larger than the UK. It’s a landscape of hills, but also of water. It rains here for up to 250 days a year and standing water is everywhere. In a floodplain of the yangtse river, black-tailed godwits probe the mud in search of worms. But it isn’t just wildlife that thrive in this environment, the swampy ground provides ideal conditions for the remarkable member of the grass family---rice. The Chinese have been cultivating rice for at least 8 thousand years. It has transformed the landscape. Later winter in southern Yunnan is a busy time for local farmers as they prepare the age-old paddy field ready for the coming spring. These hills slopes of yuanyang county plunge