Huaiji County Forest Town: Leveraging the 'Beautiful Effect' of the Provincial Forest Town to Achieve Green and Wealthy Prosperity
Since recent years, Shangshui Township has firmly established and practiced the development concept of ‘green water and green mountains are gold and silver mountains’. It has integrated ethnic cultural elements, closely combining the construction of ecological tourism-type forest towns and the creation of a township with ethnic characteristics, focusing on the development of ecological tourism and agricultural tourism, integrating ecological benefits with economic benefits, and achieving the harmonious prosperity of green and wealth.
Entering Shangshui Township, through the construction of ‘one village one flower’ viewing belt, ‘one river two banks’ landscape and rural greening projects, the greening rate of villages in Shangshui Township has obviously increased, and ecological viewing points have obviously increased. Currently, Shangshui Township has built a number of tourism sites such as the county-level forest park, the Redxia Bay Tourism Scenic Area, and the East and West Forest Parks.
Villagers
Since 2018, when we started building the forest town, there have been great changes. With the Yijiang River and the Two-Banks River, we have forest species such as doctorate forests and thinking forests, and the planting of green trees is integrated with the construction of new rural areas, creating many new tourist attractions. Villagers have good places for leisure. Because the road was built, we can see the 490-year-old Fuzhou pine, the 200-year-old big tree and other ancient trees.
Reporter learned that in 2018, Shangshui Township initiated the creation of the Provincial Forest Town, and successfully created it in November 2019. Currently, the entire township has 5972.23 hectares of forest land with a standing timber volume of 276,000 cubic meters. The forest coverage rate of the entire township reaches 78.94%, the greening coverage rate of the town area reaches 30.12%, and the proportion of ecological (public ecological forest) reaches 45.21%.
Chen Yihai
Deputy Township Party Committee Member and Secretary of Shangshui Township
Currently, Shangshui Township's ecological environment is beautiful, its ecological culture is diversified, and its living environment is clean. It has improved service facilities, and the ecological tourism service capacity has significantly increased. It vigorously protects forest resources, and the quality of the ecological forest system has been greatly improved.
'Creating a Provincial Forest Town' not only greened and beautified the environment of Shangshui Township, but also harvested the rapid growth of green resources, and also greatly promoted the development of green industries. The Shangshui Township Shensian Agricultural Product Cooperative, led by Luo Hao, a villager in Huanghan Village, is a comprehensive organization integrating high-altitude ecological linhizi (wood ear mushrooms), honey, and other production, procurement, sales and technical services. It is now preparing for spring planting. Luo Hao told reporters that over the past two years, Shangshui Township has taken the creation of the Provincial Forest Town as a key point, valued the development of forest economics, and increased his confidence in expanding planting.
Luo Hao
Manager of Shangshui Township Shensian Agricultural Product Cooperative
Currently, my main base is on Tiangouling above Shishan Village, which is a native ecological planting. Our cooperative currently has a scale of 150 acres and an annual yield of 8,000 jin of linhizi (wood ear mushrooms). It is mainly sold to the Pearl River Delta and Zhaoqing, mainly selling domestically.
Currently, we are renting 300 acres in Dongcun and Westcun in Shangshui Township to expand planting. All rental processes have been completed. We are now planting coniferous trees and waiting for next year to expand the scale to about 450 acres.
Because of greenness, and because of greenness, it is thriving. Currently, Shangshui Township has planted more than 1,500 acres of Yanshan Tea, more than 1,500 acres of high-altitude linhizi (wood ear mushrooms), more than 1,000 acres of baixiang (berries), completed the planting of hawthorn 350 acres, the planting of South Medicine 300 acres, the planting of sandalwood 900 acres, the planting of fir 1,300 acres, eight-angle 200 acres, and sugar citrus 1,500 acres. Chen Yihai said that Shangshui Township will fully utilize the ‘beautiful effect’ of the Provincial Forest Town, develop ecological tourism, and achieve green and wealth co-prosperous development.
Chen Yihai
Deputy Township Party Committee Member and Secretary of Shangshui Township
Since 2018, the creation of a provincial-level forest town has been implemented with equal investment from government, enterprises and social capital, combined with the construction of the forest town to promote the development of ecological tourism and green industry development. In the future, it will further strengthen the construction of rural tourism and let the construction of beautiful and livable ecological ethnic characteristic small township ‘shine the signboard of forest town’!
Published by: Huaiqi County People's Media Center
Reporter: Li Jiamin, Huang Cuiying
