The Chinese government will spend 50 million yuan (US$6.02 million) on building an Asian elephant breeding center in southwest China's Yunnan Province, to better protect the wild creatures from extinction.

Preparations were going well for the project, which was expected to start this year, said a forestry bureau official with the Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna.

The Asian elephant breeding center will be located in the forest in Xishuangbanna, known as the "kingdom of wild animals and plants". It was made a national nature reserve in 1958.

Chinese zoologists will first choose 50 quality Asian elephants and help them breed in the forest.

China began artificially breeding Asian elephants in 1994 in the zoo at Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. Six Asian elephants have been born there so far.

Xishuangbanna has the largest area of tropical rainforest in China. Thanks to the Chinese government's efforts, the acreage of forest in Xishuangbanna has grown from 180,000 hectares to nearly 250,000 hectares at present.

Xishuangbanna's forest is now home to more than 5,000 varieties of higher plants, accounting for half of China's total, according to Chinese zoologists and botanists. Of the plant types, 341 are rare plants and 58 are endangered species under top national protection. Xishuangbanna also houses over 2,000 species of animals, including 600-plus kinds of vertebrates.

About 300 Asian elephants live in the area all year around, latest figures show.

( July 20, 2002)