People's Daily Online: COP15 Kicks Off in Kunming, Celebrated by Asian Elephants as "Opening Guests"

On October 11, the first phase of the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on biological diversity (COP15) was opened in Kunming, Yunnan, China. Short film "Elephants' Journey in Yunnan" was premiered at the opening ceremony.

"Elephants' Journey in Yunnan" records the story of 16 wild Asian elephants which left their habitat in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, last spring and finally returned home after 17 months of trek of 1,300 kilometers. Tens of thousands of people guarded their journey and gained mutual trust with the elephant herd.

Beginning last year, a herd of wild Asian elephants in Yunnan roamed all the way north. Netizens joked that the elephants would go to Kunming to participate in COP15 conference. On September 11, "Elephants' Journey in Yunnan" was released, showing the guests the Yunnan wisdom and Yunnan solutions of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

The Asian elephant is the largest and most representative terrestrial vertebrate in Asia. The species mainly inhabits Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Pu'er City and Lincang City, Yunnan Province. In order to protect them, Yunnan has taken a series of measures, such as establishing Asian elephants food source base, strengthening Asian elephants field monitoring and patrol, and constantly improving the insurance and claim settlement mechanism for wildlife accidents, so as to gradually realize both "human elephant separation" and "human elephant harmony".

After more than 30 years of rescue and protection, the population of wild Asian elephants in Yunnan has developed from more than 190 in the early 1980s to about 300 at present. The population of wild Asian elephants has entered a stage of stable recovery and gradual increase.