保护长江鲸类

2002年，已知的最后一只白暨豚（一种江豚）淇淇在人工饲养环境下死亡，这种生活在长江中的长吻白腹江豚从此灭绝。

作者王丁是研究白暨豚的知名专家，担任联合国教科文组织人与生物圈计划（MAB）中国国家委员会秘书长。他概述了中国政府为保护长江江豚等其他濒危淡水鲸类免遭同样厄运所作的种种努力。

王丁

中国科学院水生生物研究所（HIB）教授、国际自然保护联盟物种生存委员会（IUCN-SSC）鲸类专家组成员、国际生物多样性科学计划（DIVERSITAS）中国国家委员会成员。

1982年，我进入位于武汉的中科院水生生物研究所工作。此后的20年里，我始终与世界上唯一一只人工饲养的白暨豚（学名Lipotes vexillifer，意为“落后的旗手”）淇淇相伴。

1980年，年仅2岁的淇淇意外被渔网捕获。获救后，负伤的淇淇被送往武汉海豚馆，在那里生活了20多年。2002年，“活化石”淇淇因年老去世，这是对我个人情感的一次沉重打击。我不愿相信，这种曾经在长江里繁衍生息了2000多万年的物种即将宣告“灭绝”。

“活化石”淇淇的死亡是对我个人情感的一次沉重打击

白暨豚在中国被誉为“长江女神”，关于它们的描述可以在《尔雅》中找到——这是现存最古老的一部汉字字典，成书于公元前200年。我们因此更加坚定，要在这个物种完全消失前保护好淇淇和它的同类。但遗憾的是，为时已晚。

独特的物种

2006年，我带领一支探险队在长江寻找仅存的白暨豚可能留下的任何踪迹。来自中国、日本、瑞士、德国、英国、加拿大和美国的60多名顶尖海洋生物学家使用了当时最先进的探测技术，历时39天，最终也没能找到一条白暨豚。一年后，英国皇家生物学会的《生物学通讯》杂志宣布，这种优雅的生物已然功能性灭绝。

不断有未经证实的报告传来，有人声称看到了白暨豚，但这种依靠声纳，而不是视觉在浑浊江河中游弋的长吻江豚再现人间的可能性少之又少。

这种独特的江豚只生活在长江中下游河段以及与之相连的深泽大湖。在古人口中，从华中到太平洋，1700千米河道两岸的渔民和船夫皆受到白暨豚的守护。

据不完全统计，1985年以前已知的白暨豚死亡事件中，有90%都是人类活动造成的。工业化捕捞、非法且有害的过度捕捞，以及集装箱船、运煤船和快艇无节制的快速增加，是近几十年来江豚种群数量减少和栖息地萎缩的主要原因。

从科学角度讲，江豚是一个非常重要的指标，人们可以用它来监测河流淡水生物多样性的状况和发展趋势。

保护“生命之河”

长江江豚（学名Neophocaena asiaeorientalis ssp. asiaeorientalis）是生活在长江中的另一种鲸类，其栖息地与白暨豚近乎重合，因而也面临同样的威胁。这些小型鲸类有浴缸大小，被称为“长江美人鱼”，背部没有常见的背鳍，只有一小块隆起。国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）《红色名录》将其列为极度濒危物种。长江江豚的数量一直在急剧减少，虽然开展了保护工作，但在2017年发现的野生个体只有1012只。

不过，希望还是有的。地方政府的环境管理工作近几十年来有了显著的改善。20世纪80年代，中国以发展经济为重，但随后几十年里，中央和地方政府逐渐认识到经济发展给环境造成的影响，开始采取保护环境的各项措施。

长江是世界第三大河，也是最长的只流经一个国家的河流。它被称为“生命之河”的原因显而易见。长江占中国淡水总量的40%，养育了数百万人口以及古老的鲟鱼、金丝猴和大熊猫等野生动物。长江流域只占中国国土面积的五分之一，却创造了中国国内生产总值（GDP）的三分之一。

为恢复生态系统，保护生物多样性，从2021年1月开始，长江沿岸所有自然水域实行为期十年的禁渔期。两个月后，《长江保护法》正式生效，进一步加强了长江流域开展生态保护和恢复工作的力度。除了在立法层面促进实施禁渔令，这部新的法律还强调必须要在国家和地区层面实现社会经济可持续发展。

为恢复生态系统，长江沿岸实行为期十年的禁渔期

保护地位升级

为保护江豚，长江沿岸还设立了九处国家和地方自然保护区，其中几处包含了部分河段和半自然状态的迁地保护区。21千米长的牛轭湖被称为“微型长江”，是湖北省石首市附近的一片湿地，上个世纪在此建立的天鹅洲牛轭湖自然保护区原本是用来保护白暨豚的，这里如今生活着大约100头长江江豚。当初为白暨豚设计的迁地保护措施让这些生物得以受益。

2021年2月，中国政府将长江江豚升级为国家一级保护野生动物（中国野生动物的最高保护级别），为这种极度濒危的哺乳动物提供了有力援助。

在淇淇去世将近20年的今天，20多个非政府组织（NGO）正在努力保护淇淇那些体型更小的近亲。公众参与也受到鼓励，在长江中下游以及鄱阳湖和洞庭湖湖区，当地志愿者为保护江豚，夜以继日地巡逻。

为保护地方非物质文化，人们正在努力保存由中国传说和民间故事承载的地方记忆和传统文化，同时不断更新关于白暨豚的生态知识。关于淇淇的故事已经出版，中国各地的孩子们都可以读到。我希望人们能永远记住这些独特而优雅的江豚。

拓展阅读：

《水上学校揭示长江污染问题》，联合国教科文组织《信使》，2009年4月

《长江，穿越时空的河流》，联合国教科文组织《信使》，2009年3月

订阅联合国教科文组织《信使》，阅读发人深省的时事文章，数字版免费。

在社交网络上关注联合国教科文组织《信使》：微博、微信公众号“联合国教科文信使”、Twitter、Facebook、Instagram。

By Wang Ding

As part of my work at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan since 1982, I spent twenty years with Qi Qi [pronounced chee-chee], the world’s only captive baiji Yangtze River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer, “the flag-bearer who was left behind”). 

Rescued from a fisherman’s net in 1980 after he had been accidentally hunted when he was only 2 years old, the injured Qi Qi lived in the Wuhan Dolphinarium for over two decades. The death of this “living fossil” from old age in 2002 was an emotional blow, personally. I couldn’t accept that the species, which is believed to have flourished in the Yangtze for over 20 million years, could soon be labelled “extinct”. 

Revered in China as the “goddess of the Yangtze”, the baiji has been described in the Erya, the oldest surviving Chinese dictionary, dating back to 200 BC. This only strengthened our resolve to protect Qi Qi’s fellow creatures before they completely disappeared. Unfortunately, we found that it was already too late.

In 2006, I led a thirty-nine-day expedition to search the Yangtze River for any trace of the last remaining baiji. A team of over sixty leading marine biologists – from China, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States – used the most advanced detection techniques available at the time, but failed to find a single baiji. A year later, the graceful creature was declared functionally extinct by Biology Letters of the Royal Society of Biology, UK. 

Even though unconfirmed sightings of the baiji continue to be reported, there is very little chance that this long-snouted dolphin – that relies on sonar rather than on its eyes to navigate the murky river waters – will ever be found again. 

This unique freshwater dolphin, who was believed to protect fishermen and boatmen along the 1,700-kilometre waterway from central China all the way to the Pacific in ancient times, was found only in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, and its connected big lakes. 

According to incomplete statistics, human activity was to blame for ninety per cent of known baiji deaths before 1985. Industrialized fishing, illegal and harmful overfishing, and the unbridled growth of container ships, coal barges and speed-boats are the main causes of the river dolphin’s  population decline and range contraction during the last several decades. 

Scientifically speaking, the role of river dolphins as an indicator is particularly important because it can be used to monitor the status and trends of freshwater biodiversity in rivers. 

Another cetacean in the Yangtze, the finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis ssp. asiaeorientalis), shares almost the same habitats as the baiji, and therefore faces the same threats. Also known as “Yangtze mermaids”, these smaller bath-tub-sized cetaceans – which lack a proper dorsal fin and have a small dorsal ridge on their backs instead – have been listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s IUCN Red List. Their number has been decreasing rapidly – with only 1,012 individuals still living in the wild in 2017, in spite of conservation efforts.

There is hope, however. Over the past few decades, the environmental management of local governments has improved significantly. While China’s economic development took priority in the 1980s, the government and local authorities began to realize its environmental impact in the decades that followed, and have started to take measures to protect the environment. 

The longest river running through only one country, and the third-longest in the world, the Yangtze is known as the “river of life” for obvious reasons. Accounting for forty per cent of China’s fresh water, it is literally the source of life for millions of people, and wildlife such as ancient sturgeon, snub-nosed monkeys and giant pandas. Its drainage basin comprises only a fifth of China’s land area, but generates as much as one-third of China’s gross domestic product (GDP).

To restore the ecosystem and to preserve biodiversity, a ten-year fishing moratorium in all the natural waterways along the Yangtze River was introduced in January 2021. Two months later, in March, the Yangtze River Protection Law came into effect, further strengthening the ecological protection and restoration of the river basin. Besides promoting the implementation of the fishing ban at the legislative level, the new law emphasizes the need for sustainable socio-economic development at the national and regional levels.

Nine national and local nature reserves – some of them comprising river sections and semi-natural ex situ reserves – have also been established along the river for the conservation of freshwater dolphins. Originally established as a sanctuary for the baiji in the last century, the Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve – a twenty-one kilometre oxbow lake described as “a miniature Yangtze” – an area of wetlands near Shishou in Hubei province, now holds approximately 100 finless porpoises. These creatures profit from ex situ conservation measures originally designed for the baiji.  

In a major boost for the critically endangered mammals, the Chinese government upgraded the protection of Yangtze finless porpoises in February 2021, to national first-level protected species – the country’s highest level of protection for wild animals.  

Today, nearly twenty years since Qi Qi died, over twenty non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are involved in the protection of its smaller cousin. The participation of the public has been encouraged, with local volunteers patrolling day and night along the middle and lower reaches of the river, and in the Poyang and Dongting Lake areas, to protect finless porpoises. 

In a bid to preserve intangible local culture, efforts are being made to ensure that the local memory, traditional culture in the form of Chinese legends and folktales, and ecological knowledge of the baiji are kept alive. Stories about Qi Qi are published and read by children across China. I am hopeful that memories of these unique and elegant dolphins will remain forever.