Qinghai Hoh Xil
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ASIA / PACIFIC QINGHAI HOH XIL CHINA Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) © IUCN / Chimed Ochir-Bazarsad China – Qinghai Hoh Xil WORLD HERITAGE NOMINATION – IUCN TECHNICAL EVALUATION QINGHAI HOH XIL (CHINA) – ID N° 1540 IUCN RECOMMENDATION TO WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE: To inscribe the property under natural criteria. Key paragraphs of Operational Guidelines: Paragraph 77: Nominated property meets World Heritage criteria. Paragraph 78: Nominated property meets integrity, protection and management requirements. 1. DOCUMENTATION Schaller G.B., and Wulin L. 1996. Distribution, status and conservation of wild yak Bos grunniens. Biological a) Date nomination received by IUCN: 24 March Conservation 76: 1-8. Qi D., Chao Y., Guo S., Zhao L., 2016 Li T., WeiF., and Zhao X. 2012. Convergent, Parallel and Correlated Evolution of Trophic Morphologies in b) Additional information officially requested from the Subfamily Schizothoracinae from the Qinghai- and provided by the State Party: Following the IUCN Tibetan Plateau. PLoS One 7(3): e34070. WWF (2016) World Heritage Panel a progress report was sent to List of ecoregions. Downloaded from the State Party on 20 December 2016. This letter http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/ecoregions/ecor advised on the status of the evaluation process and egion_list/, accessed in November 2016. sought responses/clarifications on a range of issues including clarifications in relation to the delimitation of d) Consultations: 14 desk reviews received. The the property, the justification of boundaries, future mission met with a wide range of stakeholders plans and management of the transport corridor that including national level officials from the Ministry of crosses the area, commitments in relation to traditional Housing and Urban-Rural Development and a range of communities within the nominated property, and senior technical specialists and scientists. Meetings measures related to the control of poaching, and the involved the National Commission of UNESCO, and a use of poison for the control of Pika. A meeting with visit was made to the IUCN office in China. The main representatives of the State Party was held at IUCN authorities responsible for the property at local level Headquarters on 20 February 2017 to discuss the were met, including the Qinghai World Heritage response to these questions. A formal response from Management Office, Secretary-General of The Party the State Party to the issues raised in the progress Committee of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, report was received by the World Heritage Centre on Governor of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, 24 February 2017. and local mayors and community leaders. Directors and senior technical specialists within the relevant c) Additional literature consulted: Various sources, technical departments of the local authorities were also including: Badingqiuying, Smith, A.T., Senko, J. and met, and meetings with community representatives Siladan, M.U. 2016. Plateau pika (Ochotona included local village committees, herders, as well as curzoniae) poisoning campaign reduces carnivore staff from schools and museums were held. abundance in southern Qinghai, China, Mammal Study 41: 1–8. Berger J., Cheng E., Kang A., Krebs M., Li L., e) Field Visit: Chimed-Ochir Bazarsad and Carlo Xin Lu Z., Buzhou B., and Schaller G.B. 2014. Sex Ossola, 27 October - 6 November 2016 differences in ecology of wild yaks at high elevation in the Kekexili Reserve, Tibetan Qinghai Plateau, China. f) Date of IUCN approval of this report: April 2017 Journal of Mammalogy 95(3): 638-645; Buzzard, P., and Berger, J. 2016. Bos mutus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T2892A101293528. 2. SUMMARY OF NATURAL VALUES Fund, W. 2013. Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe. Retrieved from http://www.eoearth.org/, accessed in The nominated property, Qinghai Hoh Xil, is located in November 2016. Fund, W. 2014. North Tibetan Qinghai Province, in the northeast part of the Qinghai- Plateau-Kunlun Mountains alpine desert. Retrieved Tibetan Plateau in China. The property is a single and from http://www.eoearth.org/, accessed in November very large contiguous area of 3,735,632 ha and 2016. Harris R.B, Pletscheer K.H., Loggers C.O., and comprises sectors of two adjoining protected areas: Miler D.J. 1999. Status and trend of Tibetan plateau Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in the west and the mammalian fauna, Yeniugou China. Biological Soja-Qumar River sub-zone of Sanjiangyuan National Conservation 87: 13-19. Huang W., Xia L., Yang Q., Nature Reserve in the east. The nominated area and Feng Z. 2008. Distribution pattern and connects these two protected areas via three 20 km zoogeographical division of mammals on the Qinghai- wide corridors which span the Qinghai Tibet Highway Tibet Plateau. Acta Theriologica Sinica 28(4): 375- and Railway, which is a major transport corridor 394. IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group. 2016. crossing the area from north-south and discussed Pantholops hodgsonii. The IUCN Red List of further in the section on threats below. The sections of Threatened Species 2016: e.T15967A50192544. this corridor that are not included in the corridors are IUCN Evaluation Report – May 2017 31 China – Qinghai Hoh Xil designated as buffer zone areas. A further large area (Pantholops hodgsonii - NT1), wild yak (Bos mutus - of buffer zone adjoins the nominated property in the VU), Kiang/Tibetan wild ass (Equus kiang - LC), wolf east and south, and also lies completely within the (Canis lupus - LC) and brown bear (Ursus arctos - LC) same two Nature Reserve areas, creating a total buffer and the Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata - NT), zone of 2,290,904 ha. Buffer zones are not designated all of which are frequently observed. Large numbers of to the west and north of the nominated property: the wild ungulates depend on the property including nominated property is bordered to the west and almost 40% of the world's Tibetan antelope and an northwest by the Changtang National Nature Reserve estimated 32-50% of the world's wild Yak. in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and by the Altun Mountain National Nature Reserve in the Xinjiang Hoh Xil conserves the habitats and natural processes Autonomous Region. In the north the property is of a complete life cycle of the Tibetan antelope, bordered by the Kunlun Mountains, and for a small including the phenomenon of congregating females part of its boundary by the Golmud Kunlun Mountains giving birth after a long migration. In early summer National Geological Park. each year, tens of thousands of female Tibetan antelopes migrate for hundreds of kilometres from The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is the largest, highest wintering areas in Changtang in the west, the Altun and youngest plateau in the world, and, within this Mountains in the north and Sanjiangyuan in the east to area the nominated property encompasses an Hoh Xil’s lake basins to calve. The property secures extensive area of alpine mountains and steppe the complete antelope migratory route between systems at elevations of over 4,500m above sea level. Sanjiangyuan and Hoh Xil, and the calving grounds for The area has a frigid plateau climate, with sub-zero other routes. The calving grounds in Hoh Xil support average year-round temperatures and the lowest up to 30,000 animals each year and include almost temperature occasionally reaching -45°C. With its 80% of the identified birth congregation areas in the ongoing processes of geological formation, the entire antelope range. During the winter, some 40,000 nominated property includes a large planation surface Tibetan antelopes remain in the property, accounting and basin on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is the area for 20-40% of the global population. with the highest concentration of lakes on this Plateau, exhibiting an exceptional diversity of lake basins and There is limited human presence in the property, inland lacustrine landscapes at high altitude. The very outside of the impacts of the transport corridor, large scale of the area and its substantially natural however it should be noted that the area is the location conditions create an area with exceptional natural for long-standing traditional grazing, and this is also beauty, whose aesthetic values are related to the further discussed below in the section on communities. experience of wild nature. The high plateau systems function unimpeded on a grand scale, wildlife is vividly juxtaposed against vast treeless backdrops, and tiny 3. COMPARISONS WITH OTHER AREAS cushion plants contrast against towering snow covered mountains. In the summer, the tiny cushion plants form The property is nominated in relation to criteria (vii) a sea of vegetation, which when blooming creates and (x), and the nomination includes an adequate waves of different colours. Glacial melt waters create comparative analysis, which is stronger in relation to numerous braided rivers which are woven into huge the latter of the two criteria. wetland systems forming tens of thousands of lakes. The lakes display a full spectrum of succession stages, In relation to criterion (vii), notable features include the forming an important catchment at the source of the presence as part of the world’s highest and youngest Yangtze River and a spectacular landscape. plateau (however reviewers question if the selected area can claim to be the most exception representation The geographical and climatic conditions nurture a of the plateau), the predominance, diversity and similarly unique biodiversity. More than one third of the density of lakes, the exceptional hydrological system plant species, and all the herbivorous mammals characterized by a succession of glaciers, marshlands, dependent on them are endemic to the plateau, and rivers and lake, and the calving areas of the Tibetan 60% of the mammal species as a whole are plateau antelope as well as the seasonal migration of a large endemics. High levels of endemism within the flora of proportion of the existing population of this species in the property are associated with high altitudes and this area every year.