The 7-year working diaries of a forest chief of a management and conservation center of Shennongjia National Park

On the desk of the forest chief's office in Shennongjia National Park, we unexpectedly saw a stack of light blue notebooks with the words "Mountain Patrol Record Book" written on their covers, so we took them over and looked through them. It is the work log of the Banqiao Management and Conservation Center of the Shennongding Management Administration  of Shennongjia National Park. The name of the book had been used from 2017 to 2022, and then changed to "Forest Chief Patrol Record Book".

After I scanned a few pages, it stunned and touched me a lot that the 7-year consecutive working records were all finished by Chen Xiaobing himself alone, even with no interruption, which immediately enkindled my respect. The following will present some copies of his.

Today, we went to Zhao Yuanhai's sand and gravel plant in Lannidi for a shutdown inspection and supervised the owner to transport the sand machine down. Meanwhile, we mounted a patrol from Meijiataizi to Banqiaohe and found everything as usual.

July 31st, 2017. Sunny:

Today, during our patrol in Xiangsiling Village, we found the 3rd Group resident Mr. Zhang was asking a digger to dig the road in front of his house. We stopped him immediately and reported the situation to the Shennongding Agency.

February 9th, 2018. Cloudy:

Director Jia together with me visited the left-behind elderly and children around the Xiangsiling Village to send them basic supplies. We also visited three remote households. Passing through the forest, we recorded and collected samples of two plant species unrecorded before.

February 22nd, 2018. Sunny

When the policemen and I went to deal with the poaching scene of criminal Deng, we by coincidence found Mr. Peng and Mr. Rong were cutting wood. We stopped them on the spot and made a quick investigation before the detailed report was submitted to the Agency for future reference.

The concise and neat working journals with annually increasingly detailed contents embody the strengthening mission of the working staff in the management and conservation center. The concise words between lines remind us of how their daily work is and how hard their work is. It's hard to imagine that a team with only several staff members shoulders such a heavy mission. They not only have to take care of thousands of hectares of natural resources, but also every and each resident and tourist in this area. The forest chief of a management and conservation center, though plays an unimpressive role in the national park, yet shoulders a highly impressive responsibility.

Unlike those train drivers or pilots who shuttle between big cities, forest chiefs have to walk through some small places, but shoulder the same mission as pilots and train drivers do—national expectations and the people's safety.

Since November this year, a total of 3 people from Banqiao Management and Conservation Center has participated in field patrol, completing 30 patrol tasks and covering 81.9 kilometers. PDA was utilized to fill in and report 77 biological monitoring forms including 44 plant monitoring ones, 33 animal monitoring ones and 1 sample site monitoring form. There were also 14 rounds of inspection and patrol completed and no abnormal situation such as illegal personnel invasion threatening the safety of wildlife resources.

From these concise records, it's easy to see that their routine is to carry out protection work with no daily absence. Regardless of weekends or national holidays, you can always find them in their office, which is at the expense of their selfless devotion to sacrificing their rest days.

Xiao Yangping, a staff member in the forest chief office showed me a half-year working summary of the forest chief scheme in 2024, saying “Banqiao center is only a representative of all the 18 ones in our national park. Each of the 18 centers has such a record book and one of everyone’s daily tasks is to make records on it.”

Shennongjia National Park attaches great importance to the role of forest chief, has established an improved forest chief system and mechanism, and works together at all levels to jointly safeguard the natural resources in this national park.

This half-year summary reads: The center-level forest chiefs led 889 rounds of forest patrols, cleaning a total of 305 steel wire rope traps, more than 350 meters of electric traps, 5 iron traps, 1 fishing net and 8 ground cage nets. Law publicity activities were carried out by 23 staff members for 513 person-times, 157 law enforcement vehicles dispatched, 39 law enforcement officers dispatched up to 377 times to examine 80 public places such as markets, restaurants and shops and 12 delivery enterprises, and 335 copies of the “Notice of Prohibiting Illegal Hunting, Eating, and Endangering Wild Animals” signed.

Wildlife in Shennongjia National Park grows freely and uninterruptedly. The safety of this vast expanse of protected area is completely tied to every forest chief. The mountains with 96% forest coverage create priceless values for China every year. All these success should be attributed to the responsible forest chiefs.

As can be seen from the “General map of patrol routes of the Administration of Shennongjia National Park”, the number of patrol routes of all the management and conservation centers there have reached nearly 1,000, which are densely interlaced and cover more than 1,000 square kilometers. These routes are exclusive to the forest chiefs and rangers, and will exist forever due to the presence of these relevant staff. We deeply appreciate the greatness of the forest chiefs and rangers, who measure this forest with their feet for decades, guard her peace with their eyes, and write a forest protection story with their efforts. (Written By He Sai & Wang Ping;Translated by Wu Xi)