The big environmental stories in the Chinese media this week (18-24 September)
Chinese singer Liu Yuning is facing criticism online for allegedly picking a highly endangered species of flower on the Tibetan plateau as part of a television show.
In an episode of the television show “Go Fighting!”, broadcast on 20 September, Liu Yuning and two other celebrities were taken to the Tibet Autonomous Region to search for snow lotus flowers on a 4,000m elevation plateau. Upon finding one hidden among the rocks, they picked the flower and took turns holding it up to the camera.
Online observers were quick to point out that the “snow flower” the trio found was in fact Saussurea medusa Maxim, an endangered species native to China’s Himalayan plateau. The flower is listed as a Grade II protected species under Chinese law and listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Journalists from Beijing Youth Daily even noticed that segments of the episode that showed the flower being picked had been deleted from the Dragon TV official website following the public outcry.
In a statement on his band’s Weibo account, Liu Yuning apologised for sending the wrong message to audiences and explained that the flower had in fact been a prop, placed behind the rocks in advance of shooting. This claim was later challenged by Gu Lei, a Beijing Normal University botany professor, who told journalists that the flower was almost certainly real and living.
On 23 September, the Bureau for Forestry and Grasslands for the Tibet Autonomous Region announced that it will formally investigate the case.
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