How 14 tiny sandpipers stopped a highway in Guangxi

Guangxi: For the spoon-billed sandpiper, every mudflat is a lifeline. With fewer than 500 left worldwide, the bird with the unique spatula-shaped bill flies thousands of kilometers each year, stopping to rest and feed on coastal flats.

One such flat lies near Xichang town in southern Guangxi. Each season, 20,000 birds from 46 species touch down there. A recent survey counted 14 spoon-billed sandpipers feeding and resting in the mud and mangroves. Under the Ramsar Convention, that number makes the area internationally important.

But on April 30, a plan was approved for a 27-mile highway right through more than 50 acres of that habitat. Builders argued the road, a nationally important project hemmed in by sea and inland development, didn’t need to follow wildlife protection rules.

The birds couldn’t file objections. People did.

For 25 days, residents campaigned. Li Jiahe, a student in the Netherlands, saw the online outcry and emailed the Ramsar Convention authorities at the UN. He’d never seen a spoon-billed sandpiper, never visited the flats, but he acted anyway. “We’re all ordinary people. We are small. But if we can raise awareness and plant a seed in people’s minds, that’s already a good thing,” he told Sixth Tone.

Other activists in Guangxi contacted the environmental authorities listed on the planning documents. BirdLife International passed the concern to its Chinese chapter.

Chinese law requires environmental impact assessments before any infrastructure project. The campaign worked. Construction was halted.T

oday, the mudflats remain. For the 49 bird species that rely on them for dinner and rest — especially the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper — the flats are still open.