In 1998, China's Yunnan Provincial government invited The Nature Conservancy to advise them about conservation at a global biodiversity hotspot, where four of Asia's great rivers converge in the Himalayan mountains. The Yunnan Great Rivers Project has subsequently emerged as a model for ecoregional planning and international cooperation. Last month two Nature Conservancy staff from the organization's Worldwide Office near Washington, DC, journeyed to remote southwest China to see the project area firsthand. A chronicle of their impressions follows.

• Arrival in the City of Eternal Spring
  (U.S. to Kunming)
   
• Journey Up the Yangtze
  (Kunming to Lijiang)
   
• The Last Outpost
  (Lijiang to Deqin)
   
• Beijing Transformed
  (Deqin to Beijing)