On July 1st, one of COE's summer practice teams, Whisper of Islands, visited the Egret Natural Reserve (A state natural reserve established by Fujian provincial government on Oct 30th, 1995) located on the Dayu Island, which is about 1.9 km away from the Xiamen Island in the south, holds an area of 0.186 square kilometer and a shoreline of 2.3 km.
At the beginning, all the 7 team members observed the local vegetation, species diversity and coastal erosion. MU Gui and ZHU Kaifeng collected meticulously the plant and sea water samples. ZHU Kaifeng (group leader) classified the benthic organism species at the intertidal zone. And then, the team visited the egret breeding zone and coastal mangroves under the guide of the natural reserve's administrator. As he said, more and more volunteers came to help the mangroves plantation in order to enlarge the habitats of migratory birds and balance the ecological environment: “For now, it seems that they have done a great job, the mangroves are growing very well. But in reverse, we still have some garbage there, which makes it hard for birds to live. This is another problem we need to tackle.” Finally, the administrator introduced the natural reserve's efforts in birds’ protection, meanwhile, he spoke very highly of the environment protection organizations' contribution.
In brief, the Whisper of Islands practice team surveyed from multiple perspectives the whole Dayu Island's ecological status. This activity strengthened all the team members' wish and goal-Blue cause, green development.