CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- The result of the Fifth Census of Ancient Trees and Wood Species in Chongqing was released on January 5. There are 3572 ancient trees and wood species in Chongqing, including 60 species, 40 genera and 35 families, and most of them are ficus virens. Among them, the oldest tree is up to 1,000 years old, and the highest tree is up to 32 meters.

Ancient trees and wood species are the precious heritages left by nature and predecessors, which record the historical changes of nature and are “green cultural relics” with vitality. In December 2020, Chongqing launched the fifth urban ancient trees and wood species and ancient trees reserve resources census, and found a number of ancient trees in Chongqing. For example, the oldest tree in terms of age and girth is a ficus viren located in No. 9 Baisha Town, Jiangjin District, which is 1000 years old and its girth is 10.13 meters. The tree takes 6 persons to hold it and its average crown width is 29 meters. The tallest ancient tree is located in Fengmu Town, Shizhu County, which is 32 meters tall, 110 years old and has an average crown width of 11 meters.

According to the census, Chongqing has 3,572 ancient trees and wood species. Among them, there are 186 first-grade ancient trees, 3,373 second-grade ancient trees and 13 famous wood species. Dazu District has the largest number of first-grade ancient trees and wood species with 27 trees. Rongchang District and Jiangjin District have 22 and 20 trees respectively. The largest number of ancient trees of a species is ficus viren with 2,168 trees.

“Every ancient tree has its own ‘ID card’.” Shi Jiyu, a member of the Municipal City Administration, said that every ancient tree and wood species and ancient tree reserve resources included in the census have a 16-bit location code and a 22-bit feature code. Location information includes administrative division, community, responsibility grid, longitude and latitude, altitude, slope, slope position, slope direction, etc., and feature information includes tree species name (including Latin name), family and genus, ownership, distribution characteristics, grade, age, height, girth, crown width, growth potential, conservation status, habitat status, etc. Citizens can scan a QR code on the tree sign to access the information about ancient trees and gain an in-depth understanding of the characteristics and history of ancient trees.

Chongqing will release measures for protection and management of ancient trees and wood species and ancient trees reserve resources as soon as possible from the institutional level to realize standardized management and protection, and work out soil improvement, ecological environment improvement, pest control and other measures to revitalize the existing endangered and weakened ancient trees.

In addition, Chongqing will improve the protection facilities of ancient trees and wood species, add lightning protection facilities, delimit protection areas, and eliminate external hazards; fully dig out the historical legends of ancient trees and wood species, build ancient tree parks and amusement parks, so that citizens can have more opportunities to get close to ancient trees; and advocate the protection made by all and carry out activities to popularize scientific knowledge to let citizens know about local ancient trees and wood species and consciously protect them. (Translated by Liu Hongyan, Fathom Language Limited)