Chen Mo, 40, stays nearly one-third of a year on China's youngest volcanic island, Weizhou Island, keeping over six terabytes of photos and also video footage of the endangered Bryde's whales.

Chen is an associate researcher from the Guangxi Academy of Sciences who has been studying the species in the waters near Weizhou Island since 2016.

"We identified about 10 members of the herd from 2016 to 2018. There are nearly 50 Bryde's whales now, and the herd size is still increasing," Chen said.

His team has observed the mating behaviors of adult whales, and mother whales hunting with their babies for years in the area, making the researchers believe that the island and its surrounding waters are one of the major hunting and breeding zones of Bryde's whales.

Weizhou Island sits in the Beibu Gulf, home to many endangered marine wildlife in southern China, while over 1,000 km away from the Beibu Gulf lies the Gulf of Thailand, which boasts a well-preserved marine ecosystem and rich food resources and is another essential habitat of the whales.

To jointly research and protect the Bryde's whales, Chinese research institutes, including the Guangxi Academy of Sciences, have teamed up with the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) of Thailand, aiming to share information and resources.

"In 2019, we jointly conducted field surveys with our Thai counterparts in both sea areas near Weizhou Island and the Gulf of Thailand, heralding the start of our cooperation in the field of studies on Bryde's whales and other marine mammals," Chen said.

Since then, protecting Bryde's whales has become an important cooperation field between researchers from China and Thailand.

To maintain clean waters and preserve the island's ecological environment, in 2018, the Beihai municipal government of Guangxi issued a regulation to prohibit the use of disposable food containers, non-degradable plastic bags, and plastic films on Weizhou Island.

Lai Chaoyun, a 38-year-old native resident of Weizhou Island, praised the government's great efforts, including setting up a sewage treatment plant and garbage transfer stations on the island.

"The garbage is mainly collected from various homestays and hotels on the island and then sorted and packaged at the stations before being transferred outside. Every day, there are 62 tonnes of garbage transported to the nearby Beihai City," explained Lai.

Lai Chaoyun has also joined whale conservation in recent years, witnessing the increasing awareness of whale conservation among island residents.

"Many residents on the island, including those businessmen, have voluntarily joined the local environmental protection campaigns," said Lai, adding that the local tourism industry association and homestay association have also advocated businesses not to provide disposable supplies to tourists to avoid generating more waste.

Weizhou Island has recorded a more frequent presence of the rare whales over the years, indicating Guangxi's outstanding efforts in strengthening marine ecological protection.

According to data released by Guangxi's oceanic administration, the autonomous region has invested over 6 billion yuan (about 834 million U.S. dollars) of funds into relevant marine ecological protection projects since 2017, making the Beibu Gulf among China's cleanest offshore marine areas.

"The Beibu Gulf boasts various endangered animals and plants and diverse marine ecosystems. Due to its natural conditions and less disturbance caused by coastal economic activities, its ecological diversity has maintained a relatively good state," said Guan Jieyao, director of the key laboratory of Guangxi Beibu Gulf's marine biodiversity conservation under Beibu Gulf University.