📖5.13 Repost: Starting the Anthropos Podcast Series, Watch EP01 (featuring Zoo/Park Designer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemTAAa0qtU

Guest Profile: Zhang QiPeng is a veteran in environmental engineering, cultural tourism, and ecological development. He started out writing environmental assessments for development projects across China, but soon shifted to cultural tourism real estate, focusing on zoo management and design. He worked with Nanjing Hongshan Zoo on welfare and design, and led a major project in the core of the Giant Panda National Park to restore forestry assets. He also gained international experience through a development project in Mongolia. Now, he heads pre-development at Wanhua Group’s park management team, where he leads new park creation and ecological restoration in both Chengdu and Chongqing. In addition to his professional work, he is a budding birdwatcher, seeking to understand birds as indicator species to enhance park environments, ensuring they better meet the needs of birds and other wildlife.

Episode OVERVIEW/SUMMARY: In this podcast, Peng discusses the evolving human-nature relationship, moving from control to restoration. He explains how modern zoo designs treat animals as equals, sometimes even superior to humans, by understanding their needs and giving them more autonomy. Peng highlights zoos' role in environmental education, offering urban dwellers a unique connection to nature. Drawing from his experience in park management and ecological restoration, he stresses that nature is a shared gift and that humanity can begin to care for it by understanding its benefits. He points out how industrialization and economic challenges once hindered this but now improvements in economy and education offer a chance to restore nature’s self-regulating systems.