Ecology and Tourism in Lin’an

Lin’an， a county-level city in the western suburb of Hangzhou， is famed in the Yangtze River Delta for its forest-centered tourism destinations. For years， the local people and the government have guarded the city’s ecology as if it were their eyes.

The other day， I visited White Sand Village (or Baisha Village)， a village in mountains where a stream is regarded a headwater of the Taihu Lake. I went there because the village is said to epitomize how the people of Lin’an have changed their skeptical view toward the role the mountains play in their lives.

After a 30-minute ride， I reached the village. I was amazed by what I saw: houses looked brand new against a backdrop of emerald forests and mountains. It was hard to envision the village’s poverty over a decade ago.

The village’s party chief told me proudly that no one in the village has cut a tree in the mountains since 1998. Timbers for building new houses and furniture were all purchased at a very high cost from the market beyond their mountains. No villagers want to cut a tree.

But everyone in the village wanted to cut trees in 1983， the year when 99% of the woods in the nearby mountains were contracted to the households in the village. For the first time over decades， the villagers had a say in the trees. They were happy， for the trees now belonged to them and the trees looked like a huge fortune. And they feared that if government might change its mind， the trees would not belong to them any more. What followed was only natural: they cashed in on their woody properties. They cut trees to sell timbers; they cut and converted trees into charcoals and sold charcoals.

Consequently， the forest coverage dropped sharply in a period of six years from 1983 to 1989， but the trees did not bring them a fortune as they had expected. The average annual income was about a few hundreds yuan. The careless large-scale deforestation brought floods， a disaster that had never happened before. In 1988， a flood destroyed 57 houses in the village. In 1990， a typhoon-triggered flood destroyed a bridge， two dams， and a 200-meter section of the village highway. The two disasters caused a loss of 3 million. The amount meant that the per capita loss was 6，000， which in turned meant that what they had earned since the deforestation was all gone.

The villagers pondered their alternatives. Many left for jobs in cities. At that time， Wang Anguo， a senior engineer from the Lin’an Forestry Bureau， came to White Sand. Wang， a collage graduate and a forestry expert， looked around. He suggested a green agricultural economy that would produce cash crops such as bamboo shoots， hickory and tea and would protect the village’s ecology.

Under his guidance， the raked mountains were replanted. The upper part of the mountains had hickory trees to hold the big part of rainwater. Bamboos were planted on the slopes half-way up the mountains to conserve soil and water. At the foot of mountains were tea plantations. This formula has proved a success.

Moreover， the government did not change its mind about the contract system. It has not and will not. The farmers still have these forests in their hands. As further measures have been taken to ensure that the contract system is a success， the villagers become certain that the trees are theirs and will not go back to the government.

Bamboo shoots， tea， and hickory soon became the mainstay of the village economy. In 1997， the village’s per capita annual income rose to 3，455 yuan. The villagers were out of poverty. But they had a new bottleneck to break for further economic prosperity. The village is too far away from anywhere and transporting their produce to distant customers was a big problem. As a village， its economy still lagged behind that of those villages out of mountains.

Wang Anguo came again. He and other experts said， let there be tourism.

The villagers trust him on trees and village economy. Wang came to work for the Lin’an Forestry Bureau in the early 1980s. Shortly after he learned about the floods of White Sand Village， he came to the village to see what happened and what he could do to help. He has stayed in the village on and off for sixteen years. White Sand Village is practically his project. It was Wang that convinced the villagers that they could shake off poverty without cutting trees. In 1997， an UNESCO official came to see the village under the recommendation of Wang. The expert suggested eco-tourism as a way for the village’s further economic prosperity. Wang thought it was a good idea.

After attending a workshop on eco-tourism in Hainan Province， he came back and talked about eco-tourism. The villagers trust him about forest， after all， he is a university graduate and knows all about trees and mountains， but this time they thought Wang didn’t know what he was talking about. They wondered who would come all the way to see mountains.

In 1998， a tourism development business was set up. The headwater of the Taihu Lake was developed. It was the first successful eco-tourism project in Lin’an. The forests， rural scenes， streams and waterfalls attract urbanites from Shanghai and Hangzhou and many other cities in this part of the Yangtze River Delta.

This time， the villagers really got rich. Lu Jianzhong， a villager who got injured when carrying a tree down from a mountain in 1992， used to lead a straitened life. In 1998， he moved out of the scenic valley and set up a three-story restaurant by a parking lot. Nowadays， the restaurant business brings his family 100，000 yuan a year.

Wang Shixin used to live a straitened life too. Part of the reason why he led a poor life was that he had married a woman from outside the village， for marrying a woman from outside his village meant the woman didn’t get her share of farmland from the village. After the tourism project started， Wang and his wife ran a small retail business selling bamboo shoots and hickory to tourists. They made money. Last year， they began to run their own restaurant business. His wife said that when she married Wang Shixin， many relatives looked down upon her as she married into a poor family. When she first started her small vendor business at the entrance to the scenic zone， she even didn’t know anything about Coca-cola. Someone jotted the words Coca-cola down on a piece of paper. She showed the paper to the wholesaler’s deliveryman. Then she began to sell the soft drink. Nowadays Wang Shixin is jokingly nicknamed Wang the Millionaire among his fellow villagers.

White Sand is a representative of what has happened to the forests of the mountainous area west of the urban Hangzhou. Similar things have happened across Lin’an. Today， Lin’an is best known for its well-preserved forests， its flourishing forest-based farming， and its unique tourism.