Yunnan forests

[Lucas]

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365478612/

full video

PBS's Nature was on last night with "Mystery Monkeys of Shangri-La." The story was the standard orphan child\monkey survives in the big bad woods but the scenery was amazing. Old temperate forest in one of most diverse places in the world. As noted below it is claimed the monkeys lhelped launch conservation in China.

"No one knew there was a kind of monkey who has red lips and pink face like us humans," Xi Zhinong told CBS News' Seth Doane. "When they first saw these pictures, they were like, 'Wow, how can we sit and watch these cute animals go extinct?'"

This says it all. If trees were cute and anthropomorphic they would have a chance.


Rhinopithecus bieti
There are just about 2,000 snub-nosed monkeys left in the wild. They live in a tiny part of a forest in China's Yunnan Province - one of the last unspoiled regions left in a country where wilderness is fast disappearing.

Mystery Monkeys of Shangri-La

Aired: 04/28/201553:10Rating: NR
Representing the meticulous and ambitious work of an all-Chinese film company led by award-winning filmmaker, Xi Zhinong, this spectacular film is the true story of a family of Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys living in the highest forests in the world.



http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/chinas- ... d-monkeys/

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/re ... monkey.xml

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-monke ... -movement/

"No one knew there was a kind of monkey who has red lips and pink face like us humans," Xi Zhinong told CBS News' Seth Doane. "When they first saw these pictures, they were like, 'Wow, how can we sit and watch these cute animals go extinct?'"

[KoutaR]

Lucas,

Thank you for posting the link. The video was great!

Kouta

[KoutaR]

The video claims there are deeper canyons than the Grand Canyon in the area. I did some searching and found these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Leaping_Gorge

http://scribol.com/environment/10-large ... on-earth/1

The latter is an interesting comparison but unfortunately difficult to read due to countless ads.

[Lucas]

The video claims there are deeper canyons than the Grand Canyon in the area. I did some searching and found these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Leaping_Gorge

http://scribol.com/environment/10-large ... on-earth/1

The latter is an interesting comparison but unfortunately difficult to read due to countless ads.

Click on image to see its original size

A hiker passes massive trees in remote Tsangpo Gorge. source

https://www.google.ca/search?q=tsangpo+ ... CAYQ_AUoAQ

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=ch ... po%20gorge

Research the Tsangpo gorge. I read some books on it 10+ years ago and it is one of the most impressive places on earth. "Regarded by some as the deepest canyon in the world"

Equally impressive was the botany. The books described huge trees on steep slippery slopes crawling with leeches. A lot of it is still unseen by western eyes.



Click on image to see its original size source

There a picture in one book of a 15,000 foot slope from the river to a mountain top said to be the highest single slope in the world(?). Not sure if the above is it but still impressive.

[dbhguru]

Lucas,

Great stuff! Here is what Wikipedia says.

As the canyon passes between the peaks of the Namcha Barwa (Namjabarwa) and Gyala Peri mountains, it reaches an average depth of about 16,000 feet (5,000 m) around Namcha Barwa. The canyon's average depth overall is about 7,440 feet (2,268 m), the deepest depth reaches 19,714 feet (6,009 m). This is one of the deepest canyons on Earth. This part of the canyon is at 29.769742°N 94.989853°E. Namcha Barwa, 25,531 feet (7782m) high, is at 29°37′33″N 95°03′26″E, and Gyala Peri, at 23,733 feet(7234m),

This is a mountain gorge and very different geologically and in form from the Grand Canyon. It is hard to make comparisons between such different land forms.

Bob

[Lucas]

This is a mountain gorge and very different geologically and in form from the Grand Canyon. It is hard to make comparisons between such different land forms.
Bob

http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2014/1 ... ngpo-gorge

"What carved the Tsangpo Gorge?

By Sid Perkins 20 November 2014 2:00 pm Comments

One of the world’s most scenic gorges has long been a mystery to geologists. Scientists believe that some canyons are carved simultaneously by the rivers that flow through them and the rapid rise of terrain on either side. But Tsangpo Gorge, a rugged, steep-walled river valley in southern Tibet (pictured), doesn’t seem to fit that pattern. To figure out how the gorge evolved, scientists took a look at the deepest sediments—some up to 800 meters—drilled from several sites along the gorge. They then analyzed when the sediments were last exposed to cosmic rays (and therefore at Earth’s surface, not buried). The data reveal that some portions of the ancient gorge began filling in about 2.5 million years ago, the researchers report online today in Science. That’s the time when a rapid, tectonically driven rise in the terrain in that region of the Himalayas naturally dammed the river that carved the gorge and triggered sediment accumulation. But it’s also several million years after the Tsangpo Gorge first formed, according to previous studies, which carves a big hole in the notion that rapidly rising terrain in that region of the Himalayas sparked the growth of the gorge. Similar studies elsewhere—especially in the western end of the Himalayas, where gorges bisect the rugged landscape—may reveal whether rising terrain truly triggers increased erosion rates."

Very different geologically in other ways, too.

[KoutaR]

A lot of it is still unseen by western eyes.

I guess so. I recently saw a BBC documentary series called "Wild China". The second episode is about Yunnan. In a scene in an evergreen broadleaf forest there was a huge tree - estimated from the humans next to the tree, its columnar trunk had a diameter more than 2 m from the base to the height of about 7 m (the upper trunk from that point upwards was not visible). The eastern Himalayas and adjacent regions (Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, northern Myanmar, Yunnan,...) have enormous potential for huge trees, I think. Alas, the region is difficult to reach.

[Joe]

This says it all. If trees were cute and anthropomorphic they would have a chance.

As a forester, when I'm marking a stand for silvicultural work (a nice way to say a logging project)- I always find and leave some cute and anthropomorphic trees!
Joe