China Scene: South

Forest team heads out in search of wild tigers

A team of 20 State Forest Bureau officials trekked into the mountains of the Tongbiguan Natural Reserve in Yunnan province to search for Indo-Chinese tigers last Saturday.

The endangered species had not been seen in the area for more than a decade, but then on May 2007, a team from Beijing Normal University took a photo of one of the tigers. The investigative team decided to visit the area to search for the big cats.

There are believed to be 1,227 to 1,785 Indo-Chinese tigers living in the wild. They are native to South China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia.

(www.shxb.net)

Yunnan on guard against invading alien species

An early warning system in Yunnan province has been defending the region against invasive alien plant species.

The alarm system was triggered 718 times last year in the face of invading plants. The province has built 127 State-level forest protection stations, 18 State-level non-quarantine object plant nurseries and 35 State-level survey and reporting points, which have been working together to check the spread of alien species.

(Yunnan Daily)

Farmer captures treasures on massive mural

Li Maohuai, a farmer and painter in Sichuan province, painted a 29-m-long picture entitled "Chinese national treasures" and donated it to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Li spent three years working on the painting, which features 29 giant pandas as well as famous scenes such as the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and Yangtze River.

(www.newssc.net)

Divorce may have been appropriate, but not legal

A court in Chengdu's Longquanyi district, Sichuan province, has ruled against the local civil affairs bureau for granting a woman a divorce from her mentally disturbed husband.

Zhang Cheng and Wang Yan were married on Jan 9, 1994, but doctors soon discovered that Zhang, the husband, had mental problems. On Nov 17, 2006, the local civil affairs bureau approved the couple's divorce.

However, Zhang's relatives argued that Zhang never approved of the split, so they filed a lawsuit with a local court.

The court ruled that the bureau's decision to allow the divorce was illegal, but declined to reverse the split because it was already a fait accompli.

The two families eventually agreed that Wang should pay 50,000 yuan to support Zhang.

Experts said divorce is appropriate in such situations.

(Chengdu Evening News)

(China Daily 03/21/2008 page6)