Xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, April 30 Title: Qinling Ranger Zhao Canghu's 20-year mountain patrol
Xinhua News Agency reporters Zheng Xin and Zhang Bowen
According to the National Geographical Names Information Database, Jingyu in the depths of the Qinling Mountains was named after its silence. But the silence here is broken in the early morning by the chirping of early birds and the rustling of leaves by mountain winds. This was followed by the loud footsteps of several rangers.
The leader is Zhao Canghu, 59 years old. More than 20 years ago, he was a logger, walking every day on this mountain road leading to the Qinling Yingpangou in the forest area.
The area of state-owned forest management and protection in the Yingpangou area is about 5,300 mu, which is less than one-tenth of the total area of the Jingyu Pipe And Protection Station of the waterlogged ecological forest farm in The Enyi District of Xi'an, Shaanxi, and it is also a small piece of green in the vast forest sea of the Great Qinling Mountains.
Rangers patrolling the mountains in the camp ditch. (Photo by Xinhua reporter Zheng Xin)
The 20-kilogram backpack was filled with mountain knives, safety ropes, dry food and a large stack of propaganda materials, and without crutches, they scurried on the slippery gravel road after a light rain, Zhao Canghu and his colleagues bent down to pick up waste for a while, looked at the distant mountains and forests, and occasionally roared a few throats to scare away small animals that might be entrenched on the side of the road.
"When I was 18 years old, I went to work in the waterlogged forestry farm, and my daily job was to cut down trees. Do more and eat more, and eat two pounds of grain a day. "When he first came from the countryside under the mountain to do logging, Zhao Canghu had endless strength, and all by manpower, he cut down the trees in the forest farm one by one.
In 2000, the first phase of China's natural forest resources protection project was fully launched, the timber was stopped and the production was reduced, and Zhao Canghu was transformed into a forest ranger, and the main content of the work changed from cutting down trees to protecting trees.
"Turning economic benefits into ecological benefits, many people can't understand what this means, and I can't understand it at that time, but I have feelings for this forest." Zhao Canghu spoke in the thick Shaanxi Guanzhong dialect. Since then, the calluses on his thick hands and the scratch marks on his body have been replaced by bruises and sprains that have been walking on the mountain for many years.
Some rangers of the Jingyu Pipe Protection Station held a morning meeting. (Photo by Xinhua news agency reporter Zhang Bowen)
"Like this tourist shoe, wear a bad pair for two months." Old Zhao told reporters that there is no means to patrol the mountains compared to a pair of "iron legs." The range of the Jingyu Pipe Protection Station is large and scattered, in more than a dozen lines, the short round trip takes four hours, the long one takes eight to ten hours, the wind meal is every day, and the open sleep is often there.
"Sometimes there are many tasks when I come out, and the mountains are so dark that I can't go down the mountain early, and I fall asleep listening to the howls of the beasts." Chu Shoulin, who has been partnering with Zhao Canghu for many years, said that antelope and wild boar have seen a lot in the mountains over the years. During a mountain patrol in 2019, they also encountered two black bears blocking the front of the road.
Zhao Canghu said that it was not uncommon to encounter those lawbreakers who indiscriminately cut down and cut down, illegally used fire or stole valuable Chinese herbal medicines more than a decade ago. Whenever he encountered it, he first went up to stop it and then reported it. He said that now there are fewer "five chaos" in Qinling, and more people encountered in the mountains are "donkey friends" and college students who come to investigate.
Zhao Canghu (first from right) rests in the mountains with colleagues. (Photo by Xinhua news agency reporter Zhang Bowen)
From the young man when he first walked into Jingyu, to the old man who has two grandchildren now, Zhao Canghu, who has been working in qinling for more than 40 years, is still carrying his bags almost every day, walking in groups of two or three colleagues in jingyu ditches and beams, checking the growth of trees, inspecting fire risk points, and publicizing laws and regulations on the protection of wild species.
"The larch I planted in the 1990s grew from a small sapling to a height of 19 meters. These trees are like my children, watching them grow little by little, our hard work has not been in vain! Zhao Canghu, who will retire in April next year, told reporters that in this forest farm, he is the only remaining employee who has experienced logging, witnessed the improvement of the ecology of The Great Qinling Mountains, and more and more people take the defense of the ecology of the Qinling Mountains as a conscious action. He felt that as long as his legs could still move, he still wanted to do his job well and continue to guard this mountain and this forest.