Beijing Review

Mountains of Gold and Silver

A mine-rich Zhejiang county reaps the benefits of green developmen­t

- By Ji Jing

President Xi Jinping’s visit to Yucun in Zhejiang Province, east China, on March 30 held special significan­ce for him, for the former mining village and for environmen­tal protection efforts in China. It was there 15 years ago that as secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi put forward the concept that “clear waters and green mountains are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver.” The concept has become a motto for China’s green developmen­t and ecological civilizati­on today.

Green developmen­t

Fifteen years ago, Yucun was known for its limestone. Back then, over half of the nearly 200 households worked in quarries, earning around 1,000 yuan ($142) per person per month on average. The first limestone mine was opened in the village in 1977. By the end of the 1990s, the once impoverish­ed village had become a well-known industrial center with an annual per-capita income of 3,000 yuan ($434), close to that in the provincial capital Hangzhou.

However, the source of prosperity also brought problems. Bao Xinmin, Party Secretary of Yucun, told China Global Television Network, “Mines were like gold and silver mountains then. [As a result of heavy mining] our water and mountains became heavily polluted.” The mountains were scarred by enormous mine pits, the water and air were polluted with the discharge from mining and there were frequent accidents in the pits. As one villager said, they stopped listening to the weather forecasts because all days were gloomy and dark with the ensuing pollution.

In 2003, the CPC Zhejiang Committee proposed a series of developmen­t strategies, including lessening dependence on mining and strengthen­ing ecological preservati­on. By the end of the year, a cement plant that had been running in the village for 18 years was closed and in the following two years, three more mines were shut down.

Zhejiang launched a rural clean- up campaign to improve the environmen­t and people’s living standards in rural areas. The project sought to develop 1,000 villages into demonstrat­ion villages exemplifyi­ng a moderately prosperous society in all respects and 10,000 villages were asked to clean their rivers and address the rampant use of chemical fertilizer­s and pesticides.

By 2018, two years before Xi’s revisit, the mountains in the village had become lush green and the sky blue. Zhejiang’s Green Rural Revival Program was among the recipients of the UN’S Champions of the Earth Award in 2018 for “the transforma­tion of a once heavily polluted area of rivers and streams,” showing “the transforma­tive power of economic and environmen­tal developmen­t together.”

The village began to help people affected by the mine closure to improve their livelihood­s. Pan Chunlin’s was a typical case. The tractor driver lost his job after the mines were closed. Indeed, the village’s collective annual income dropped from 3 million yuan ($426,000) to less than 300,000 yuan ($42,600) and sustaining people’s livelihood became a pressing issue. In 2005, the village committee decided to develop rural tourism, although the villagers had doubts about the approach.

Pan opened a homestay. To everyone’s amazement, he earned over 100,000 yuan ($14,200) in the first year. Now he has expanded his business portfolio from a homestay to hostels, two restaurant­s and a tourism agency, becoming a millionair­e.

A large number of locals started small factories making sheets and chopsticks from bamboo, which is abundant in the village. Initially, chemical pesticides and fertilizer­s were used to grow more bamboo. Then the local government stepped in, banned their use and instead encouraged the use of organic fertilizer­s to protect the environmen­t and ensure that the bamboo shoots were healthy and of a higher quality.

Over the past 15 years, people in the village have planted many trees on the

mountains, turning the scarred slopes green again. Green developmen­t has also been boosted with white tea farms, rural tourism and ecotourism.

An abandoned quarry has been transforme­d into a mine heritage park while the closed cement factory has been turned into a scenic spot. “We posted photograph­s of the village’s mountains and rivers online and they became popular. We have benefited from the good environmen­t,” Pan told Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily.

In 2019, the village received 900,000 tourists and earned a revenue of 279.6 million yuan ($39.7 million). Its per-capita income increased from 8,732 yuan ($1,240) in 2005 to 49,598 yuan ($7,042) in 2019. The villagers’ cottages have been refurbishe­d into spacious houses and every household has a car.

“The ecological environmen­t itself is the economy. All ecological protection efforts will be rewarded,” Xi said during his recent visit.

Innovation-driven growth

The beautiful environmen­t in Anji, the county where Yucun lies, attracts not only tourists but also college graduates to return and start their own businesses. Bian Yueming is one of them. He came back to the county to grow grapes, introducin­g improved planting techniques and starting a rural cooperativ­e to grow high-end varieties. They have been earning high revenue.

In addition to high-end agricultur­e, Anji has also become an incubator for science and innovation. One biotech company located there, Zhejiang Orient Gene Biotech, created headlines during the novel coronaviru­s outbreak by developing a test kit.

Zhu Jiasheng, Deputy Director of the Anji Science and Technology Bureau, told Science and Technology Daily that the county has turned away industries that cause high pollution and consume a lot of energy; instead it has wooed science and innovation­driven industries through policy innovation and service improvemen­t. Zhu also said Anji’s developmen­t has proved that ecological preservati­on and economic developmen­t are not contradict­ory. Anji has driven its developmen­t with science and technology, without trading off its environmen­t, ecology and natural resources.

 ??  ?? Yucun, a village in Zhejiang Province in east China, on March 31
Yucun, a village in Zhejiang Province in east China, on March 31
 ??  ?? Visitors tour Dazhuyuan Village in Anji County of Zhejiang Province on June 4, 2019
Visitors tour Dazhuyuan Village in Anji County of Zhejiang Province on June 4, 2019

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