BEIJING: Senqi, or “Forest Life”, a suburban town in Taiyuan, capital of the northern province of Shanxi, has become the only settlement in the province to be added to the list of “national forest health bases”, the Chinese Forestry Industry Federation announced on July 19.
As part of an environmental restoration project covering 358 hectares and stretching across several hamlets in Dongjiazhuang village, Senqi is home to 47 families, whose ancestors lived by quarrying and farming for generations.
With a total investment of 1 billion yuan ($140 million), the project consists of homestays and farms on mountains that are being restored after years of serving as quarry sites and developed into ideal places for climbers and hikers.
The lifestyles of local farmers have changed along with their hometown. As the project is creating sufficient jobs via homestays and catering to tourists, local people no longer need to leave the villages to seek employment as migrant workers during slack farming seasons. Meanwhile, their farms are also being transformed by the cultivation of more local specialties and cash crops for tourists.
The project has won a number of national honorary titles, such as Beautiful Village of China, and the local government has named Dongjiazhuang as a model of rural vitalization for the rest of the province to follow. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
