More than 150 mountain keepers devoutly protect the Tianmu Mountain with thousands of footsteps

The Tianmu Mountain is world-famous, and the extremely fine craftsmanship of the nature. Moreover, it cannot be separated from human forces.

“Look. There is a red light ray behind the forest! Let’s go and have a look.”

At summer night, the Tianmu Mountain of Lin’an is studded with stars. The breeze is light, and the air is clear. The forest ranger Yan Fang at 56 years old and other colleagues were patrolling the mountain with flashlights by wearing camouflage clothing and red armbands of “forest fire supervision” under the chirp and croak.

It was the summer tourist season in the Tianmu Mountain, and also the busiest days of Xiguan Protection Station of Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve Administration. Yan Fang and other three forest rangers were protecting the forest of more than 2,000 hectares. Patrolling the mountain for one day, they would walk at least 10 or 20 thousand steps.

In the protection zone of the Tianmu Mountain, there are many “forest rangers” like Yan Fang. They believe that forest protection is their bounden duty.

Five protection stations including Xiguan, Dongguan, Longfengjian, Nandamen and Niling are distributed in Tianmu Mountain National Nature Reserve of 4,284 hectares. Yang Wenjie (Gainer of “Green Guardian” and Director of Forest Fire Prevention Management Center of Tianmu Mountain Administration Bureau) once worked as forest ranger at three protection stations successively, so he is very familiar with this.

“The predecessor of the protection zone is the ‘Natural Forest Exclusion Zone’ established in 1956, and its area is 1,018 hectares. It was promoted as the first batch of national natural reserves in 1986,” said Yang Wenjie. During that year, he began to work in the protection zone of the Tianmu Mountain at 16 years old, and became the youngest “forest ranger” in the protection zone.

Yang Wenjie needs to patrol the mountain at the dawn of every day, and walk for 26 kilometers in one round. He is accompanied by the mountain and birds.

The most important thing of patrolling the mountain is to prevent fire. Especially during the Spring Festival and Qingming Festival, he and his colleagues need to wait in the wings and eliminate fire risks.

It is not easy in summer. They need to discourage people pitching tents beside the mountain stream. Under the endeavor of all “forest rangers”, no fire disaster happened in the protection zone of the Tianmu Mountain during the past 37 years.

Nowadays, the scenic area not only sends warm fireproof messages to visitors and expands the fire forest belt, but also adds “technical prevention” and “physical prevention” means like infrared ray monitoring and unmanned helicopter patrol. However, “human prevention” is still the key.

Besides patrolling the mountain, we should also protect wild animals and plants. In the 1980s and 1990s, the villagers’ protection awareness was not strong. Some villagers would fell trees in the mountain, and peel the bark of the national conservative plant Eucommia, leading to the death of trees. Therefore, Yang Wenjie and his teammates needed to work at a selected spot for investigation, to catch the thieves. At present, there are more than 150 “forest rangers” from Tianmu Mountain Administration Bureau, 5 protection stations and villages.

The Tianmu Mountain is never an isolated mountain, but an integrated mountain range. A miraculous amphibian – hynobius amjiensis inhabits in the adjacent Longwang Mountain. Its survival rate was less than 5% 20 years ago, and there were only above 200 adult ones monitored in the field during the most severe period. Its precious degree is not second to the pandas.

To protect these creatures in the mountain, the members in various generations of hynobius amjiensis protection teams have stayed in the deep mountain for many years. After artificial conservation for more than 10 years, more than 1,000 sets of hynobius amjiensis have returned to the wild, and grown in the Tianmu Mountain.

At present, there are 10,440 plants and animals discovered in the protection zone of the Tianmu Mountain, occupying 44.3% of the whole province, including 117 wild animals and plants of national protection. Besides, there are 172 wild animals and plants named with “Tianmu”.

Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets

“Tianmu” legend between human and nature

Mountaineers rely on the mountains, just like those by the waterside profit from water. The villagers of the Tianmu Mountain are protecting the Tianmu Mountain; the green scenery of the Tianmu Mountain is also benefiting the villagers of the Tianmu Mountain.

Not long ago, the panel of Chinese National Committee for man and the Biosphere Programme came to Lin’an again, to investigate the story behind human and nature.

Han Liqun (Former Secretary General of the Man and the Biosphere Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) expressed that they gained a deeper cognition about the ecological value of the Tianmu Mountain after visiting the commercial activities of homestay, happy farmhouse and study.

In fact, as early as 20 years ago, a seed of harmonious development between man and nature was planted at the foot of the Tianmu Mountain.

“To develop the happy farmhouse, we must focus on the ecological environment.” The villagers at the foot of the Tianmu Mountain still remember the entrustment of Xi Jinping who was the Secretary of the CPC Provincial Committee 20 years ago.

Today, the homestays and happy farmhouses are everywhere in Tianmushan Town, and become the pillar industry. For example, Yueliangqiao Village rose suddenly with the posture of “a dark horse”, and initiated the iteration and upgrading from happy farmhouse to boutique homestay.

In 2016, the “moon sister” Zhang Huiyun returned to her hometown, and transformed the waste station at the entrance to the village into the first boutique homestay “Moon Workshop”.

Elegant homestay, melodious tweedled, verdant courtyard…… Once the Moon Workshop appeared on the market, city people came here in an endless stream, and “it is hard to book a room” during holidays and festivals. In 2019, it was praised as the first “Platinum Homestay” of provincial level in Lin’an District; in 2022, it was praised as the only “National Class A Tourist Homestay” of Hangzhou.

The popularity of the homestay has promoted the employment. Three homestays (“Water Courtyard”, “Tea Courtyard” and “Mountain Courtyard”) of the Moon Workshop have attracted more than 10 villagers to work and act as housekeepers here. Meanwhile, the marketing of surrounding farmers’ agricultural products has been promoted.

Zhang Huiyun considers that “teaching a man fishing” is the key to realizing collective prosperity.

Last year, the first homestay talent teaching and training base – Tianmu Homestay College was started, and Zhang Huiyun acts as the President. Through “imparting, helping and guiding”, she shares the experience of operating the homestay, and leads more villagers to get on the “collective prosperity vehicle” of green economy.

To give full play to ecological advantages, the homestays and happy farmhouses alone are not enough. In 2017, Lin’an creatively put forward the concept of “village scenic area”. Yueliangqiao Village cooperated with Tianmu Village, Baihe Village and Xu Village to create the village scenic area of “Tianmu Moon Village”.

Xu Bin (Designer of Tianmu Moon Village and Professor of Zhejiang A&F University) conducted in-depth investigation, “Finally, we decided to create ‘Tianmu Moon Village’ based on the ecological IP of the Tianmu Mountain and ‘moon’ element of ‘Yueliangqiao Village’. By ‘lightening’ Yueliangqiao, Moon Workshop, Honeymoon Greenway, Qianlong Moon Lane…… Forming a complementation with the day tour in the Tianmu Mountain, the night will bring tourists a romantic night tour about the moon. This will improve the nighttime economy of rural sightseeing.”

“Meet the moon, ‘see’ the future.” At present, Xu Bin’s team will continue to draw the blueprint of “Tianmu Moon Village”. In the aspect of hardware, they will extend and improve the Honeymoon Greenway, create a scenic spot of moonlight lake beside the reservoir, and introduce Tianmu Lamp Art Museum. In the aspect of software, they will continue to attract and improve some collective prosperity projects, add new consumption scenes, and make the collective prosperity pattern more systematic.

“Today, the villagers in the protection zone have realized the transformation from ‘selling wood and selling charcoal’ into ‘selling mountain products and selling ecology’ by converting the industrial track, changed from ‘I’m required to protect’ into ‘I want to protect’, and achieved harmonious development between man and nature,” said Ye Haoran, Secretary of Tianmushan Town Party Committee.