Mountain Ecosystems: The China and Tibet Borderlands Project
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Team members will take part in a comprehensive, on-site survey of the mountain highlands that extend from the tropics of Southeast Asia to the margins of the Tibet Plateau. Dividing our time between Thailand and China, we will investigate the ecology of this spectacular landscape, and the people who reside there. We will also focus attention on some of the environmental problems that trouble this region, and explore creative strategies to ease them.
Beginning in the city of Chiangmai, Thailand our 
program will follow an ecological transect from the limestone hills of northern Thailand, across China’s Yunnan Plateau, to the eastern margin of Tibet. This transition from tropics to alpine is one of earth’s finest, encompassing high biological diversity, breathtaking landscapes, and numerous isolated culture groups. It is ideal for a field course in wildlife biology, human ecology, and ecosystem management. On one hand, northern Thailand and southern China is a global center of diversity for important groups of birds and wild plants, a trend driven in part by the region’s rugged, isolating topography. It is also a place of great human cultural diversity – still traditional, but exposed to rapid development and change.
Throughout the project, team members get firsthand exposure to ongoing case studies that highlight the tension between economic development and cultural/biological sustainability. Examples include agricultural intensification, the “Grain to Green” conservation program, and the uneasy relationship between tourism, conservation, and spirituality in the Meili Mountains. We will struggle to deconstruct and evaluate these conservation challenges in discussions amongst ourselves, with regional experts, and with local residents. Discussion, hands-on field studies, and extended journeys through remote backcountry provide the team with a rich, broad-based educational experience, and a tremendous opportunity for intellectual and personal growth. Please note that prior field research experience is not required. All necessary skills of data acquisition and analysis will be taught on-site in China.
THE PROJECT
The first two weeks of the Mountain Ecosystems Program is set in Northern Thailand. Orientation, in the city of Chiangmai, is timed to coincide with the Songkran water-splashing festival, an exuberant event for Thais and visitors alike. Field studies in Thailand take us to Doi Suthep National Park and Pangmapha District, mountainous enclaves that supports intact monsoon forest and numerous ethnic minority ‘tribal’ groups like the Karen, Lahu, and Hmong whose lifestyles differ from the majority Thai people. Our travels in Pangmapha include 4-5 days of trekking, nights spent camping or staying in the homes of local villagers.
The China portion of our program begins at 6500 feet elevation in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan Province. Yunnan, unfamiliar to many Westerners, is a distinctive region larger than Germany. It is home to 25 of China’s 56 ethnic minority groups and more than half of its plant species. Here in Kunming, we’ll discuss some fundamentals of contemporary Mainland Chinese culture, focusing on the attitudes and policies for environmental protection that are emerging in Yunnan.
Leaving Kunming, we’ll visit a few of the many ranges of mountains that make the Yunnan Plateau so inaccessible. The places we’ve selected are transitional between the tropical hills of Southeast Asia and the snowy flanks of the Himalaya. Our forest surveys in this zone will provide us with a fascinating reference point between tropical and alpine habitats, and the chance to meet some of the self-reliant and culturally distinctive minority peoples who live in the mountains of Yunnan.
The final segment of the Mountain Ecosystems Program is a field survey of wilderness backcountry in the spectacular “parallel river gorge” area of northwest Yunnan, near Tibet. Valleys slicing through this region hold three of Asia’s great rivers: the Yangzi, Mekong, and Salween. The highest mountains, known to the Chinese as Meili, to the Tibetans as Kawakarpo, are beautiful, and deeply sacred. Some of the paths we plan to follow have been used for centuries as a kora, or pilgrimage route. They are scenic and sublime, passing mountains that exceed 22,000 feet elevation and traversing rare habitat seldom investigated by outsiders. The lichen-draped conifer forests and remote Tibetan villages in this area are a memorable setting for our field studies.
The format for learning on the Mountain Ecosystem Program includes presentations by the Wildlands course instructors, Thai and Chinese scientists, and local experts with diverse educational backgrounds.
Among our group, there will be frequent class discussions, hands-on field study, and extended foot-journeys into remote backcountry locales. When we are away from inhabited areas, we plan to spend our time base-camped, or trekking on foot to conduct our field studies. A highlight of our program is a trekking circuit in the vicinity of Meili Snow Mountain. This journey will take 10-15 days on a route that winds through miles of sacred and ecologically significant mountain landscapes. These activities will provide our team with a richly-textured, broad-based educational experience, and a tremendous opportunity for intellectual and personal growth.
By the end of the Mountain Ecosystems Program each of us will have gained experience conducting ecological field studies in parts of Asia that are rarely investigated by outsiders. We will also acquire a solid introduction to northern Thai, Chinese and Tibetan culture, and insights into the future of a dynamic region. In-country fee: $1950.
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PROJECT LEADERS
CHRIS CARPENTER works as an ecologist and conversation scientist for Wildlands Studies. Chris has conducted field studies and led natural history programs in Asia and North America for many years. Chris lives in Chiangmai, Thailand and currently teaches field study courses in China, Southest Asia and the Himalayan Region.
THANKIT KUNKHAJORNPHAN will assist with the Thailand portion of the Mountain Ecosystems project. She has co-taught Wildlands Studies courses in Southeast Asia since 1998.