China is attempting to apply for a world natural heritage site covering a valuable wild fruit forest which is over 33,000 acres in the Xinjiang Uiygur Autonomous Region. The wild fruit forest is located the Yili River valley in the Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture and has been there for more than a thousand years.
According to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency, the forest consists of wild apple trees, wild apricot trees, wild walnut trees, wild almond trees, wild plum trees and wild cherry trees. The wild apple tree woods are regarded as the largest in China and are regarded as being well preserved.
It was reported that the wild apple in Central Asia the one of the original species of apples that were planted in Europe and in the U.S. The wild apple tree forest in the area is significant to the world's biodiversity and has been listed as a priority-protection species in China. The forest has been recorded in the “China Red Cover Plant Book” since the 1980’s.
However, Forest Bureau spokesperson Zhu Xinsheng in the Yili Autonomous Prefecture indicated that the size of the forest has been reduced to half its size than that of 50 years ago due to excessive grazing and agricultural development. The forest is has been attacked by jewel beetles (also called Metallic Wood-boring Beetles) and is at risk of becoming extinct.
Chen Yunhua, the director of the Horticulture Institute, said that some wild fruit forests are at risk of becoming extinct because of agricultural development, stock raising, mining and tourism in recent years. He also warned that if no protection measures are taken, jewel beetles would be especially destructive. At the current rate, the wild fruit forests would vanish in the near future.
Mr. Zhu said that China has been applying for a world natural heritage protection program to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in addition to applying for a national wild fruit forest natural preservation area.
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