National reserve engineer retraces her journey

For Peng Yu, her early days of working with Mengda national natural reserve left her a lot of bitter memories. Tramping over the rugged mountain in the reserve with thick short and tall plants in Xunhua Salar autonomous county in Qinghai province is never easy.

It was no surprise that the 41-year-old's work of observing and caring species left at least three pairs of shoes worn out each year, though she didn't often lose her way after darkness enveloped the reserve of 17,290 hectares.

Her working conditions, however, have changed dramatically as China bolsters its efforts to enhance biodiversity conservation.

One of the most difficult times for Peng and her colleagues was when plants in the protected area were infected with pests.

Many of her colleagues had to go through the jungle with sprayers that weighed over 20 kilograms, though she as a female engineer usually didn't have to do that.

"Now the unmanned aerial vehicle does the job," she said, smiling.

Despite that she still has to patrol the reserve for observation and survey, however, she no longer needs to do that frequently like she previously did, thanks to intelligent facilities that have been applied.

In addition to three unmanned aerial vehicles especially designed for monitoring, the protected area now also boasts of 46 sets of infrared monitoring facilities, said the reserve.

"Apart from an office desk, I previously had almost nothing else," Peng said.

She said she has also seen her team growing bigger and her salary increasing as the country attaches increasingly greater importance to biodiversity conservation.

There were only five engineers for species protection in the reserve when she came to work in 2006. Now the number is 18.

She saw her monthly salary soar from only 300 yuan ($47) to over 7,000 yuan.

The per capita disposable income in Qinghai in 2020 stood at about 24,000 yuan.