A squadron of armed police was formally founded Thursday in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region to protect the rich local forest and wildlife resources.
The organization of forest police forces was authorized by the State Council and Central Military Commission at the end of 2001 and underwent nine months of preparation.
As one of China's largest virgin forest regions, Tibet is key to soil and water conservation as well as bio-diversity protection in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Tibet has vast wetlands and pastures. Its reserves of living timber and numbers of wild animals both rank first in the country's provincial areas. It also possesses some rare alpine plants.
Currently, the forests throughout the region cover 7.17 million hectares, 5.84 percent of Tibet's territory.
The region has more than 7,200 kinds of plants and 773 species of vertebrates, 125 of which are under special government protection. Many animals, such as Tibetan antelopes, wild yaks, wild donkeys and Tibetan snow cocks, are unique ones only seen in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
However, the large forest area, complex terrain, inconvenient traffic and sparse population in Tibet make it hard to control fires in the wild and to put out fires coming from the other side of the border.
In recent years, warm and dry weather has posed a severe challenge to natural ecological protection and forest fire prevention in the region.
Liu Yuan, deputy political commissar of Chinese People's Armed Police Force, said the founding of the special police unit marks anew phase of Tibet's ecological building and forest protection.
(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2002)
