On April 10th to 12th, Dr. Andreas Krug, Head of the Department of Sustainable Land Use and Biosafety with the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, and his colleague Dr. Christian Grossheim, visited Qianyanzhou Ecological Station, the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), accompanied by Dr. Zhao Shidong and Dr. Yu Xiubo from IGSNRR.

The purpose of this visit was to understand the management ofplantation forestry in South china.

Dr. Wang Huimin, head of Qianyanzhou Ecological Station, and Dr. Li Qingkang gave a warm reception to the guests.

On 10th, the guests visited the typical zonal vegetation, an evergreen broad-leaved subtropical forest in the National Nature Reserve of Jinggang Mountain, Jiangxi province.

In the morning of 11th, the experts made a site visit to some typical forest plantations, as well as some field experiments at Qianyanzhou Ecological Station. They also had a discussion with the research staff on the issues of forest management and ecological environment.

In the afternoon, the guests went to a neighbor state-operated forest farm, visited some newly planted pure fir and slash pine plantations under different management practices, and discussed the economic income and management of plantation with the manager and staffs of the forest farm.

After the dinner, the Sino-German Experts hold a three-hour-long overview discussion on the achievement, present problems and potential risks in subtropical forest of China. All the experts reached an agreement to strengthen the Sino-German cooperation in subtropical plantation management in the future.

Pic 1:The gusts is visiting a slash pine (Pinus elliottii) nursery.

Pic2:The guests in a masson pine (Pinus massoniana) plantation at the Qinayanzhou Ecological Station