Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has
introduced a quota system this year for snow lotus plucking and
dealing to curb the over exploitation of the rare plant.
Zhang Xiaopeng, director with the regional supervision center of
grassland resources, said not more than 700,000 snow lotus can be
plucked in 2004, dropping one-third from last year.
Listed an endangered species, snow lotuses, which mainly grow on
meadows near the snow line on Tianshan Mountains and Altay
Mountains, are suffering a habitat shrinkage as a result of snow
line rising in recent ten years.
To make it worse, Zhang said, the rising demand for the rare
plant from pharmacy and invigorant industries has caused an over
exploitation and a quantity decline of snow lotuses.
Currently only three million snow lotuses are fitting to be
plucked. Calculated with the 1-4 ratio between pluckable snow
lotuses and the total existing ones, a figure provided by the
supervision center, the region now should have some 12 million
these rare plants. But the figure in 1988 was 28.3 million.
Over 100 firms in Xinjiang are engaged in the business of snow
lotus purchase and processing.
The supervision center has ordered for strict management over
the snow lotus business.
The licensing work will be strictly controlled and no firm can
do the business without the authorization by the supervision
center, the order said.
The supervision center will set each authorized firm a quota
according to their business scales, Zhang said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2004)