Forest guardian working 3600 meters above sea level

Just before dawn, 12 forest guardians are ready to go for patrolling up the primeval forest, which is more than 150 kilometers away from Hongyuan County of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

Zhao Yong, an officer at Hongyuan Forest Public Security Bureau, said that this is a routine patrol. As forest police, they spend nearly all of the time on patrolling the forest and investigating criminal cases.

Hongyuan County owns 145,200 hectares of natural forest with forest coverage rate reaching 8.23 percent. The forest is home to five national key protected plant species and 31 national protected animal species.

In order to protect this forest, a team with 15 persons was formed in August 2009 in Hongyuan County. The guardian had to patrol five days a week because they were short of hands. They faced many challenges especially lack of cell phone coverage in the pathless forest.