Editor’s note
A healthy environment is the foundation of a stable and healthy society. To ensure the well-being of the present and future generations, a lot of #TsinghuaRen have devoted themselves to the protection of natural resources and the maintenance of biodiversity.
“It’s extraordinarily meaningful, especially doing research on ecosystem restoration, and that’s why we chose this path.”
Bai Jiankun, from the Department of Earth System Science, led his team to make important contributions to mangrove restoration and conservation. Since 2017, Jiankun has visited more than 4,000 acres of mangroves in the island province of Hainan, and the data he has collected covers almost all kinds of mangroves found in local areas.
“As soon as I stepped into the mud, one of my feet sank into it. The deeper I sank in, the harder it was to pull my legs out,” said Jiankun, recalling an intensive field survey to verify the positive effect of biodiversity on mangrove biomass.
Numerous challenges waited for them in every field research, such as the danger of being attacked by wild animals, changeable weather, unwieldy equipment, and poor living conditions. No matter how difficult their work was, Jiankun and his team never gave up. Once they stepped into the mud, they exerted all their energy into the research work.
Spending three years collecting data of the mangroves in China by hand in early 2021, Jiankun and his team published a research paper entitled “Mangrove diversity enhances plant biomass production and carbon storage in Hainan Island, China” on Functional Ecology. The paper offers a better understanding of the diverse effects on mangrove ecosystem services.
Although they do not work at the frontline for mangrove restoration, their research work provides concise and valuable data to government policymakers to put in place necessary measures for nature conservation and wetland protection.
“The ultimate goal of conducting research on mangrove is to protect it, restore it, and maintain its diverse functions in the ecosystem.”
Jiankun and his team, as representatives of numerous researchers and environmentalists, are playing their part in protecting biodiversity and helping build an ecological civilization where humans and nature coexist in harmony.