Collaborated with the Consulate General of Switzerland in Chengdu, the 33rd Café des Sciences Lecture with a special focus on the Sustainability Strategies of Mountains and Forests was successfully held at Zhongshuge Bookstore in Chengdu. Guest speakers from both China and Switzerland shared their research and projects on the protection of mountains and forests in Southwestern China.
The first speaker – Ms. Xiaojing Chen, Senior Vice President of Novartis Group (China), shared the Southwest Sichuan Carbon-sink Forestry Project with us and also elaborated to the audience on the sustainability efforts made by Novartis.
Since 2007, Novartis has established a strategy to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through both internal and external actions. Internally, Novartis has improved energy efficiency and uses or purchases energy from renewable sources. Externally, our company has established our own carbon-sink forestry projects in countries all over the world, specifically in Argentina, Mali, China, and Colombia.
In 2010, Novartis launched the Southwest Sichuan Carbon-sink Forestry, Community and Biodiversity Project in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Over a period of 30 years, Novartis will invest RMB 100 million, or 15.3 million USD, in reforestation, which will remove an estimated 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Progress has already been made and measured in the past 12 years. Since the beginning of the project, more than 21 million trees have been planted in 5 counties, restoring more than 4,000 hectares of land and creating land care and forest maintenance jobs that benefit over 4,000 rural families.
On top of the forestry project in Sichuan, the Green Chemistry project initiated in 2021 at Changshu Site demonstrates their efforts in upgrading technology to promote sustainable chemistry. Green chemistry technologies not only help reduce the use of harmful chemicals, but they also save energy through mild reactions and reduce our environmental footprint. Over the past year, Novartis has been working closely with the local government and industry to share best practices and technical know-how.
Following the presentation from Novartis, Dr. Davide Fornacca, a Swiss-Italian Researcher from the Institute of Eastern-Himalaya Biodiversity Research of Dali University, shared his research on forest fires in northwest Yunnan.
Yunnan province in China has rich forest resources but high forest fire frequency. Therefore, understanding the ecological consequences of forest fires helps research the protection of forests. Forest fires can cause damage, but sometimes their occurrence is necessary in order to maintain the health and proper functioning of the ecosystem, and forest fires are essential natural processes needed to regenerate a decaying landscape and have resulted in the evolution of many important plant species.
However, the scientific monitoring and fire management system is needed to put the risk under control. Various research tools are employed to map out the risk of the fires and develop the ways to respond to the fires.
The final speaker of the evening is Prof. Lijun Su, Deputy Director-General of the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (IMHE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He introduced the technologies and systems they use for disaster risk reduction and presented the international exchanges and activities between IMHE and other institutions.
Mainly focusing on mountain surface systems, IMHE is engaged in research on mountain hazards, mountain ecology & environment, and the sustainable development of mountains, of which debris flow research ranks the world's first class. In the past five decades, IMHE has completed more than 1,000 research projects and substantially contributed to the prevention and mitigation of mountain hazards, recovery of vulnerable eco-environment, and sustainable development of mountain regions. Furthermore, various technologies for disaster risk reduction have been developed by the researchers at IMHE, such as the Dual-source surface wave detection of slope structure, the method for detecting the distribution and flow of groundwater, new landslide mitigation technologies and so on. He also showcased the system for disaster process simulation and risk management.
Besides the research projects, Prof. Su also introduced the international exchanges between IMHE and other institutions worldwide. IMHE established the Chinese Committee of International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (CNICIMOD), China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences, and CAS and Alliance to promote a partnership of connectivity between China and South Asia countries International Science Organizations on Disaster Risk Reduction (ANSO-DRR). These international cooperation platforms will play a critical role in promoting academic and scientific exchange and collaboration along the Belt and Road.
During the Q&A session, both the online and onsite audience were very engaged, however, due to the time constraints, we could only take a few questions for the speakers to answer. We encourage our audience to email us at artscience.china@swissnex.org with any additional questions. And we hope the lecture could bring more thoughts to everyone on the protection of mountains and forests.
