Peter Wilson

The area of Lijiang is host to more than 3,000 species of flowering plant. The garden alone contains perhaps 2,000. Many of Britain's flowering plants have historically come from Yunnan, and the province is one of the most varied zones for plant life in the world. That alone makes it exceptional. It is also beautiful - Jade Snow Mountain (Yulong Xue Shan), towering above the garden at well over 5,000 metres, is the name given to sixteen different peaks in the area. Below the garden lies the village that was home to famous botanists Joseph Rock and George Forrest early last century.

The co-operation between Edinbugh and Kunming has been long standing, and painstaking. It has involved remarkable botanists from both sides, who are carefully cataloguing everything they can see in the garden, and actively transplanting species from other areas that will flourish there and be protected from increasingly rapid changes in the climate and local environments. It is a vital task, to preserve biodiversity on our planet. It is also a delicate one, because the immediate economic needs of a local people that remains poor often run contrary to longer term interests in preservation. Climate change has - within less than a twenty year period - has also had a clear and demonstrable effect on the area.

My family went to Lijiang with my cousin and his wife, who both work in Shanghai. Ed had been to Lijiang before, nineteen years ago, when it was home to only 300,000 people, mostly from the Naxi minority. The area now houses 1.2 million, and there is much new building. It is still beautiful - and we were still keen to be one of the many tourists who now go. I hope we did not take too heavy a toll on the local environment, and that Kunming and Edinburgh get the support they need to carry out their vital work for many years to come.

Ramona - thank you for your comment on my Guizhou entry! It was kind of you and the Foreign Affairs Office to take good care of me.