Agritourism shines with ‘family wetland’
Print Edition
CHEN Shibin, the owner of a teahouse in Pixian County, a suburban area of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, is proud to be a member of a pilot water-protection program initiated by Coca-Cola China and the World Wildlife Fund.
Living next to the Zouma River, the main water source for Chengdu, Chen and his fellow villagers used to discharge all their wastewater directly into the river.
It was a common practice at the time when the whole village had no more than 100 people. However, when Chen started to run the teahouse five years ago and business boomed, the practice became a burden.
“Many people love to spend their leisure time here drinking tea, having dinners and even sleeping overnight … We indeed consume much more water than a few years ago,” Chen said.
Agritourism refers to the rising popularity among urban residents to spend their time in farmhouses to escape the busy city life, to breathe fresh air in rural areas, to find the freshest food and to feel the beauty of nature.
While some just go to farmhouses during weekends or for a short vacation, retired people can stay for months, even years. For them, agritourism has become agri-home to benefit from a better environment that helps them find physical and psychological peace.
Sichuan big for rural tourism
There are believed to be more than 1.5 million farmhouses providing agri-tourism around China, and one third of them are in Sichuan Province, most of which lies on the upper Yangtze River basin. Some farmhouses — or more realistically, farm buildings — have grown so big they can receive up to 1,000 guests a day during the peak season.
But with the rising number of people comes pollution, along with much greater water consumption. Unlike industrial wastewater, which usually concentrates in one area and has a professional disposal system, rural wastewater is usually scattered, which makes it difficult and expensive to treat in a systematic way.
Tons of highly polluted black water used to flow into the Zouma River every day, creating a sore sight and unhealthy condition.
“The booming of agritourism has created tremendous challenges to water safety in the lower reaches of the river basin due to the daily wastewater discharge,” said Wei Baoyu, a project manager at WWF.
“Wastewater discharged by such farmhouses not only worsens the living environment of local residents, but also threatens the safety of drinking water downstream as well as the ecological balance of the entire watershed,” Wei said.
Chen knows the importance of environmental protection, which is why he became an active participant in the water-conservation project.
In 2011, Chen joined the construction of a “family wetland” and found it a practical and easy way to deal with the challenge of disposing of dirty water. The family wetland, which originated in the United Kingdom, is a purely natural solution to ensure safe discharge of wastewater. Similar to a real wetland, it resorts to soils, woods and various plants to clear water.
With a water corridor or a water tank constructed in three height levels, wastewater can flow from the first level to let solids sink, to the second level for the stripping of nutrition, and to the third level for purification.
The corridor outside Chen’s teahouse swirls for around 20 meters and is covered by plants including purple lythrum, irises and canna lilies, as well as others common in rural areas. Without knowing better, visitors often just think it’s a special scenery for the sake of beauty.
“It is feasible, with a relatively low cost, and not difficult to maintain,” Wei said. He says Chen’s family wetland cost about 20,000 yuan (US$3,272). But with smarter design and a more proficient installation, the costs can be reduced significantly.
For some smaller farmhouses, several thousand yuan can be enough to construct a family wetland.
Since 2007, Coca-Cola China and WWF have set up 15 test family wetlands in Sichuan to demonstrate the best practices. To sell the idea to more people, on October 30 Coca-Cola China, together with the WWF, China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges, and local governments, announced a new project to promote the family wetland in agritainment areas in Chongzhou, another city in Sichuan.
Coca-Cola China gives subsidies, WWF offers experience, and the governments make efforts that this practice can help protect precious water resources and promote eco-friendly tourism.
“We hope to make positive changes to our communities together with our partners with such projects to improve people’s livelihood,” said David G. Brooks, executive vice president of Coca-Cola China and Korea.
Thousands of farmhouses reportedly have registered for the program, and the first batch of three will complete construction by December. They are expected to purify 70,000 tons of water annually. Coca-Cola China, the fundraiser in the program, has invested more than US$10 million on water resource protection in China since 2007.
The investment will increase to US$20 million by 2020, Brooks said.
In the recently unveiled the 2012-2013 Coca-Cola China Sustainability Report, the world’s largest non-alcoholic drink producer pledged to replenish safe and clean water resources equivalent to the amount used in its beverages and production back to nature and community by 2020.
“The family wetland project is an essential part of the initiative,” Brooks said.
Of course, such a corporate social responsibility program is not purely charitable. In return, Coca-Cola China can establish closer relationships with its clients. Zhang Wei, general manager of Coca-Cola Sichuan and Chongqing, said that many farmhouses have already become their customers and sell their products.
“Our employees collect first-hand information of the wetland and give feedback to WWF to ensure smooth maintenance … It is a perfect way of integrating business operations with the sustainability initiative,” Zhang said.
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