Chendu, China Photograph by WWF/ Don Reid   China÷Sichuan Province Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   37,900 square miles (98,100 square kilometers) -- about the size of Virginia Critical/Endangered

· Rugged Road
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern

Rugged Road

The borders of Tibet lie to the west and north; the Yunnan Plateau to the south. To the east lie hundreds of miles of hills cut by the Yangzi (Changjian) River. According to a Chinese saying, "the road to Sichuan is harder than the road to heaven." This observation may stem from the fact that the northern part of Sichuan is ringed by rugged mountains. In contrast, the Sichuan Basin is a fertile expanse of low hills and plains. It once supported extensive subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests, but 5,000 years of agriculture have taken their toll on the natural environment.

Special Features

Soil in the Sichuan Basin is rich with minerals, making it fertile and good for agriculture. Summers are hot and humid and winters are foggy and chilly. Mountains can be as high as 2,300 feet (700 meters). Today only patches of forest remain on remote slopes and on the sacred mountains of Emei Shan, Leshan, and Dazushan. And some semi-wild wetlands still provide habitat for migratory birds.

	A combination of humid air in the region, high mountains that block air circulation, and cold air from central Asia means that the sky over the Sichuan Basin is overcast most days of the year. Chengdu, in the western part of the Sichuan Basin, averages more than 300 days a year of foggy weather.

Wild Side

Much of the original Sichuan Basin Evergreen Broadleaf Forests has been destroyed, so it is hard to know exactly which species used to exist in the ecoregion. Oaks, Schima (from the tea family), and species of laurel are believed to have dominated the landscape. Thin stands of both wild and cultivated Masson pine and Japanese cypress still grow in relatively undisturbed places. Limestone areas become colorful when bushes such as dyetrees and Sichuan pepper begin to bloom. Rare plants that still occur at subtropical elevations include tree ferns, dove trees, and conifers: Cathaya argyrophylla and Taxus chinensis. Black kites hunt along rivers and bats fly through the evening sky. Emei Shan is one of the best places to see the remnants of lush subtropical forests and the animals that live there. Tibetan stump-tailed macaques swing through the trees on this sacred mountain, while liocichla birds fly nearby.

Cause for Concern

People have settled in the Sichuan Basin for 5,000 years, and today the area is one of the most densely populated farming regions in the world. Most natural places have been seriously modified by thousands of years of agriculture and commerce, and decades of heavy industry. Conservationists hope to protect the remaining forests from further development.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.