Man walks home to pray to ancient tree
Print Edition
CHEN Jiafen, 60, often takes a 10-minute stroll on a white slab road to visit the “Tree God.”
For generations, his family lived in the shadow of a 4,700-year-old ginkgo tree in southwest China’s Guizhou Province.
His family and neighbors moved in 2011 to make room for the tree, which is 50 meters tall. Its vast roots permeate the foundations of buildings.
“The great tree answers our prayers and protects our village. We had to return the favor,” Chen said. The village of 18 Miao families now live in new homes about a kilometer away.
The tree needs protection as fire and smoke from cooking could hurt it, Yang Ping, deputy chief of Changshun County forestry bureau. The soil around it has grown barren and needs fertilizing.
The county spent 2 million yuan (US$307,000) on new homes for the villagers and invited experts to take care of the tree: removing dead branches, treating wounds and dealing with pests. Three lightning rods have even camouflaged as branches to avoid spoiling its natural beauty.
It is not just in Changshun that people have gone to great lengths to protect trees. About 70 billion yuan was spent by 78 cities in 2014 on forestry, Zhang Jianlong, chief of China’s State Forestry Administration, said during an urban forestry conservation meeting in east China’s Anhui Province.
A campaign to “bring forests into cities and surround cities with forests” is combining successful experience from abroad with Chinese reality, Zhang said.
“In the future, we will try to move away from the enclosed management of green spaces and bring forests into communities and people’s lives, to make forests more accessible,” he said.
A total of 21 cities were awarded the title of “State Forest City” at the meeting, increasing the number of state forest cities to 96.
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