The loss of the red pines reduced his income to 200 yuan in 2004, he said, adding that many other people like him could barely make a basic living.
"But now we have two jobs, first is to patrol and protect the red pines, and then pick up some pine nuts," Dai said, adding that he can collect about 400 kilograms annually from the 20,000 red pines for which he's responsible.
With other forest products－such as blueberries－his family can earn as much as 100,000 yuan annually, he said.
"It's urgently necessary to protect the red pines, because they are the supportive trees in the forest ecology," said Jin Guangze, an expert on red pines from Northeast Forestry University in Harbin, Heilongjiang province.
Public participation could motivate the government to do more and supervise their actions, he added.
But there should be regulations to control excessive harvesting of pine nuts, and more funding and preferential policies from the central government are needed to speed up the recovery, he said.
