Conservation, SHANHE

Working with local botanists, we collect and cultivate alpine species from northwestern Yunnan and surrounding high-elevation regions. Seeds move through controlled germination, nursery cultivation, and gradual acclimatization before selected plants enter a living alpine garden in Liju Village.

But returning a plant is not simply a botanical act. The mountain is also pasture, farmland, habitat, livelihood, memory, and home. For Shanhe, conservation therefore means learning how biological restoration can exist within a landscape already shaped by human lives.

Conservation does not return plants to an empty mountain.

Meconopsis of the Hengduan Mountains in its habitat — Alpine plant in its habitatFig. 01

Alpine habitat at high elevation — Narrow window for survivalFig. 02

Why alpine plants

A Narrow Window for Survival

The Hengduan Mountains are a global center of alpine plant diversity, where many species depend on narrow ecological and seasonal conditions for survival and reproduction.

Habitat disturbanceClimate changeCollection pressureFragmented populationsLow seed viabilityDeep dormancy

“Some seeds must experience winter before they can germinate.”

Expeditions

Reading the Mountain Before Collecting

Conservation begins before a seed reaches the laboratory. Field observation keeps ecological context visible: slope, exposure, surrounding vegetation, moisture, elevation, and the timing of flowering and fruiting.

Rather than treating a seed as an isolated object, photographs, location notes, species identification, and observations of the surrounding habitat become part of the cultivation process. Collection is therefore not the removal of a plant from a landscape. It is the beginning of a responsibility to understand what that plant will need if it is to survive beyond that landscape, and eventually return.

Slope, exposure and surrounding vegetation

From seed to seedling

The Cultivation Protocol

Open each step to see the practice, what is done, the key parameters, and why it matters. Full species-level recipes are maintained in the field records, not repeated here.

A seven-stage path from field seed to garden seedling, reproduced from Shanhe laboratory and nursery records: SELECT → SOAK → CHILL → SOW → MONITOR → REPOT → TRANSPLANT.

01

Seed Selection

Seeds are cleaned, sorted by species and batch, and checked for damage or poor development before cultivation.

Why it matters, a clean, well-labeled start makes every later decision traceable.

02

Seed Soaking

Seeds are treated with sterilizing and dormancy-breaking solutions to reduce contamination and prepare them for germination.

Why it matters, surface microbes and hard coats are the first barriers to germination.

03

Cold Stratification

Seeds requiring winter conditions are kept moist at 0–5°C for 15–30 days, depending on species, to help release dormancy.

Why it matters, winter is being reconstructed for seeds that left the mountain.

04

Sowing & Substrate

Seeds are transferred to species-appropriate substrates, with fine seeds sown close to the surface.

Why it matters, substrate texture and depth govern moisture and air for each species.

05

Environmental Control

Pots are maintained at approximately 18–20°C under controlled light and humidity, with water supplied from below.

Why it matters, a stable microclimate replaces the seasonality of the alpine zone.

06

Germination Monitoring

Each batch is monitored for germination, root and leaf development, moisture, and mold.

Why it matters, observation is where protocol becomes care.

07

Transplanting & Nursery

Once seedlings are large enough, they are separated into individual pots and moved from the laboratory to a greenhouse in Lashi, near Lijiang, for continued cultivation.

Why it matters, hardier, individual plants are better prepared for the return to the mountain.

Return

The LIJU Alpine Garden

In Liju, cultivated plants enter a landscape that is already inhabited, worked, grazed, visited, and cared for. Shanhe's alpine garden was developed as a living conservation space where threatened high-altitude plants can be seen closer to the community rather than only on remote peaks. The garden has grown to include more than thirty alpine plant species.

Its construction also revealed the practical realities of restoration: water had to be secured, fencing had to keep free-ranging livestock from entering, and ongoing maintenance depended on people who could return after the planting day was over.

The Liju alpine garden site — Alpine garden plots in the landscape of LijuFig. 03

“No water, no flowers.”

Yisan, Shanhe volunteer (recorded in the field)

The sentence is simple, but it captures the project's larger lesson: restoration is never only about placing a species back into space. Survival depends on infrastructure, labor, local knowledge, and continued responsibility.

Local young volunteers helped identify a site, carry materials, plant, water, and maintain the garden. Bird guide and forest practitioner Lihua passes the site during mountain trips and shares updates on flowering.

Two landscapes

When Conservation Moves

The same cultivation practice takes on a different meaning when it enters Beijing. At school, an unused corridor became a small garden of approximately thirty pots across six alpine species.

Medicinal fields in the Lijiang landscape — Lijiang

Beijing school corridor garden — Beijing

Who is Allowed to Alter a Shared Corridor?

Who performs the daily labor of watering and maintenance? Which plants are welcomed, protected, labeled, or removed? Can caring for a plant change how students understand environmental responsibility?

Liju asks how plants return to a lived landscape. Beijing asks who, plant or person, receives permission to stay.

Continue to Beijing →

Species archive