Jingde and Jixi counties are mountainous counties in southern Anhui Province, and compared with neighboring counties with relatively flat terrain, they lack the advantages of industry and population agglomeration. However, Jingde and Jixi were respectively selected as the first batch and the seventh batch of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" practice and innovation bases in the country, and they both belong to the core area of "Dahuangshan" in the southern Anhui International Cultural Tourism Demonstration Zone.
A few days ago, this reporter visited the villages of Jingde and Jixi counties with the provincial people's congress's "Jianghuai Environmental Protection Century Tour" to see the vivid practice of the two counties in planting a green foundation and turning "green" into gold.
Revitalizing ecological resources Jingde County implements the "Two Mountains Bank" to realize resources
Liuxi Village, Jingyang Town, Jingde County, is the first village in the province to establish the "Two Mountains Bank". Before 2016, Liuxi Village was a typical collective economic upside-down shell village, with an area of 9,105 mu of mountain farms, but the collective income of the village was less than 30,000 yuan. Farmers guard the mountain farm resources at their doorstep, but they are unable to "monetize".
"The village has neither a collective forest farm nor fixed assets, and has been in arrears for many years in the wages of the outgoing village cadres. Therefore, the village 'two committees' and villager representatives made up their minds to develop the industry, went to Anji, Zhejiang and other places to learn from experience, and established the 'Two Mountains Bank' in 2021. Hu Liming, the leader of the village team and the first secretary of the general party branch of Liuxi Village, Jingde County, said.
In Hu Liming's view, although the village is rich in natural resources, it is scattered and idle, and cannot be favored by foreign merchants. By drawing on the decentralized input and centralized output of commercial banks, the "Two Mountains Bank" has carried out large-scale "packaging" of idle resources such as mountains, water, forests and grasses in the village, and implemented market-oriented operation, so that the "Two Mountains" resources have achieved high-quality and efficient transformation.
Villagers in Liuxi Village, Jingyang Town, Jingde County, picking tea
"My family's more than 20 acres of mountain farms have been allocated to me for 40 years, and basically no income has been generated. Through the 'Liangshan Bank' and 'Fractional Deposit and Lump Sum Withdrawal', I received a one-time compensatory income of more than 16,000 yuan. Yang Xuesong, a villager in Liuxi Village, said.
Up to now, Liuxi Village has transferred 4,600 acres of woodland, and built a white tea, fragrant tree and orchard base covering an area of more than 2,000 acres. In 2023, the collective operating income of Liuxi Village will reach 1.117 million yuan, doubling in three years, and it has transformed from an "empty shell village" to an "industrial village".
Jingde County is a key mountainous county of forestry in our province. As of the end of last year, the county implemented the "Two Mountains Bank" to 6 towns and 14 villages, implemented the joint-stock management of 22,700 mu of forest land, issued 2,804 "Ecological Resources Beneficiary Certificates", encouraged villagers to develop forestry industries such as Cinnamon and Camellia oleifera, and benefited 6.2237 million yuan from farmers.
Focusing on ecological healing, Jingde County's tourism revenue in the first quarter reached 820 million yuan
Healing the soul with ecological beauty has become the first choice for city residents. On weekends and statutory holidays, there are always many citizens who choose to stay in country houses by car.
Sanshan Village, Xinglong Town, Jingde County, is only 43 kilometers away from the Huangshan Scenic Area, where mountains are embraced, the water is murmuring, and the air is fresh.
According to Ni Haichao, secretary of the general party branch of Sanshan Village, Sanshan Village has invested idle resources such as villagers' homesteads and fish ponds into the development of "village fields" homestays. Among them, the "Muratari" Valley B&B, which covers an area of about 10 acres, has a total operating income of nearly 60,000 yuan from the first day of the new year to the eighth day of the new year alone, which can increase the income of the village collective by about 110,000 yuan every year.
Autumn harvest of terraced fields on the clouds in Sanshan Village, Xinglong Town, Jingde County
Walking into the Sanshan Village B&B, the billboard of "One Table of Dishes in the Village" is particularly eye-catching, and the raw materials of the dishes on the billboard are all local chickens, wild vegetables, and river fish.
These local dishes have become a major feature of Sanshan Village's cultural tourism, and the homestay service staff informs the farmers of the tourists' ordering needs through the farmers' WeChat group, and the farmers are responsible for delivering the dishes to their homes. In this way, tourists can not only eat green and organic farm food, but also have an additional way for farmers to increase their income.
It is understood that since its operation in July 2023, the "one table dish in the village" model has driven a total of about 400,000 yuan in farmers' income, enhancing the enthusiasm of villagers to participate in rural revitalization.
According to the introduction of the cultural and tourism department of Jingde County, Jingde is the eastward gateway of the "Great Yellow Mountain" area to Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. From January to March 2024, Jingde County received a total of 1.77 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 21.6%, and achieved tourism revenue of 820 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.1%.
Guarding the landscape and pastoral Jixi to create a "out of the circle" scenery in southern Anhui
The rape field is a beautiful scenery in southern Anhui in spring.
"The scenery here is so beautiful, I didn't expect it to be very convenient to drive along Anhui Zhejiang Tian Road!" At the Meiganling Observation Deck in Xingfu Village, Jiapeng Township, Jixi County, many tourists from Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang took a group photo with selfie sticks.
Tourists take photos at the Meiganling Observation Deck in Xingfu Village, Jiapeng Township, Jixi County
In 2005, photographer Yan Houkang's work "People in Southern Anhui" taken in the rape flower terraces of Meiganling won the first prize of the United Nations Human Settlements Photography Award. Since then, the sea of rape flower terraces in Meiganling has been well-known and attracted attention from the outside world.
Nowadays, Meiganling Terraced Rape Flowers, Anhui Zhejiang Tianlu Self-driving Tour, Shangcun Characteristic Homestay Cultural Month "Autumn" have long become "out of the circle" self-driving tourist destinations. Jiapeng Township has also made use of high-quality ecological resource endowments and embarked on the development path of transportation and tourism integration.
Cheng Peng, deputy head of Jiapeng Township, Jixi County, told reporters that Jiapeng Township has beautiful natural scenery and a forest coverage rate of more than 80%. In order to protect the ecological environment, the local area has planted 6,000 acres of camellia, cinnamon and Chinese herbal medicine under the forest to prevent soil erosion.
The beautiful natural scenery has been successfully "realized" into an advantageous resource for cultural tourism. Since 2023, Jiapeng Township has received more than 800,000 tourists, and villagers have opened more than 100 farmhouses and hotels, with a comprehensive tourism income of about 50 million yuan.
Aerial photography of highways in Jixi County during the 11th Golden Week of 2023 (photo by Fu Zhongzhen)
In recent years, Jixi County has focused on the two-way development of ecology and cultural tourism through the "tourism +" model. The county has closed 16,000 acres of mountains and cultivated forests, 33,000 acres of forests, restored 8,100 acres of degraded forests, added 2 national star-rated leisure agriculture and rural tourism boutique enterprises, obtained 5 green product certifications, 3 organic product certifications, and 2 "Anhui American agricultural products" brands. (Reporter Wang Yingzhi poster Luo Zhonglin)