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Conserving the primary forests in the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon for people and nature

Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024)Cite this article

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One exciting development has been the description of three giant trees in the YTGC region during 2022–2023. Using a combination of space-borne and high-accuracy near-surface drone and backpack lidar, we described a 76.8-m-tall Pinus bhutanica in Medog county, an 83.4-m-tall Abies ernestii var. salouenensis in Zayu county (first identified by K. Guo’s team from the Institute of Botany at Chinese Academy of Sciences) and a 102.3-m-tall cypress tree in Bome county (height estimates are previously unpublished). The cypress is likely to be Cupressus austrotibetica; our estimates put it as the tallest tree known in Asia.

Around this cypress, we identified 108 trees with heights that exceed 70 m in a 22.4-ha area of C. austrotibetica forest (Fig. 1a,c). Of the 108 trees, 34 exceeded 85 m in height, and two were above 100 m tall. We estimate that the 102.3-m-tall C. austrotibetica would be aged over 1,000 years, weigh approximately 183 tonnes and contain 100 tonnes of carbon stock. The intricate vertical structure of these giant trees nurtures a diverse assemblage of lichens, ferns, mosses and orchids that, in turn, provides habitat for numerous species of invertebrates and vertebrates. These forests represent a hotspot of giant trees in the world, as well as important additions to the oldest known trees in China3.

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Fig. 1: The primary forests of the YTGC region and increasing identification of the biodiversity value of the region.

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Acknowledgements

We thank communities in Medog for sharing knowledge and guidance, China State Forest and Grassland Administration, Forest and Grassland Bureau of Tibetan Autonomous Region, and Government of Linzhi Prefecture and Motuo County for research permission and support, as well as CICC charity foundation, China Green Carbon Foundation, and GAC Toyota for funding. Funding was provided by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2022YFF130202); International Research Centre of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (grant no. CBAS2022GSP06); and National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 42371329 and 31971575).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yu Ren, Cheng Li.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yu Ren, Haitao Yang, Kai Cheng, Mengxi Chen, Zekun Yang & Qinghua Guo

  2. Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yu Ren, Fangyuan Hua, Zhixin Cheng & Qinghua Guo

  3. Xizijiang Conservation Center, Shenzhen, China

    Cheng Li

  4. Shan Shui Conservation Center, Beijing, China

    Kating Chau & Xiangying Shi

  5. School of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    Guangpeng Fan

  6. Beijing GreenValley Technology Co., Ltd, Haidian District, Beijing, China

    Guangcai Xu

  7. Center for Nature and Society, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Ruocheng Hu & Zhi Lu

  8. National School of Development, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xiangying Shi

  9. School of Tropical Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan University, Haikou, China

    Hongcan Guan

  10. Key Laboratory of Bio-Resource and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Kangshan Mao

  11. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yanjun Su

  12. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yanjun Su

Authors
  1. Yu Ren
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qinghua Guo or Zhi Lu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary reference of Fig. 1(e)

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Ren, Y., Li, C., Chau, K. et al. Conserving the primary forests in the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon for people and nature. Nat Ecol Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02383-y

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