Interviewee: He Shuzhi
Position: One of the first batch of litchi ancient tree guardians in Guangdong
A section of the 1,000-year-old lychee tree is hidden in the 8.5L motorcycle fuel tank.
It's talking about He Shuzhi's motorcycle. As a village cadre and one of the "first guardians of ancient lychee trees in Guangdong", He Shuzhi's daily life is to take the ancient lychee garden in Lingjiao Village, Baiqiao Village Committee, Genzi Town, Gaozhou City, Maoming City as the center, riding a motorcycle, and running back and forth for everything in a radius of 3 kilometers. In the past year, many times He Shuzhi can ride a total of one or two hundred kilometers in four days, and the 8.5L motorcycle fuel tank has to be refueled once.
On April 11, 2023, the day that everyone in Lixiang knows, He Shuzhi also remembers it deeply. Running on the Lychee Guardian Avenue, He Shuzhi often thinks about how to do better?
The new Guardian
Early April, 8 a.m. The sound of sweeping the floor sounded on the bluestone avenue, and Ke Weicong, a young man from Gaozhou, began to clean and take care of the ancient Li Garden, and his badge read "Guangdong Guoxiang Folk Tourism Development Co., Ltd. Gu Li Garden Guardian". Spontaneously guarding the ancient lychee garden for many years, He Shuzhi and other 6 villagers of Baiqiao Village were awarded the title of "the first batch of ancient lychee tree guardians in Guangdong" by the government.
In 2022, the Gaozhou Municipal Government invested 35 million yuan in the lychee trees and miscellaneous fruit trees in the ancient liyuan and their affiliated land to sign contracts with the natural village collectives, natural villages and villagers of natural villages related to Baiqiao Village, complete the overall circulation, and then package and sublease them to the state-owned enterprise Guangdong Guoxiang Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Guoxiang Group) for unified management and operation. In 2023, the ancient tree guardian of Guliyuan will be divided into two teams, the 6-member "ancient tree guardian" team will be responsible for dynamic patrol as usual, and the state-owned enterprise team of Guoxiang Group will be responsible for stationing Guliyuan. Ke Weicong, who grew up in the city, said, "After another colleague and I joined the company last year, the number of state-owned enterprise guardians increased to eight. ”
Enjoy the flowers in spring, taste the fruits in summer, and watch the trees in autumn and winter. During the peak hours of passenger flow, all the places in the ancient Li Garden where people can stand are people, everyone wants to get closer to the ancient trees, and some people can't help but want to touch the ancient trees and even climb the ancient trees to pick the bark. "Although there are monitoring equipment all over the park, we still need to maintain real-time supervision and timely prevention and reminders, after all, ancient trees are very fragile. Ke Weicong said.
When the "sudden" motorcycle outside the Guli Garden starts, it is usually He Shuzhi who is busy with the work of the village committee and is ready to start the daily tour of the garden.
"The young lychee fruit is as big as the peanut", "This cluster of lychee flowers hides 'big belly worms', but it cannot be sprayed to repel insects during the flowering period, so as not to affect the fruit set", "If there is white powder at the bottom of the core, pay attention to termites"...... Ho Shuzhi strode into the ancient lily garden, observed and recorded the subtle changes of each ancient tree in terms of leaves, branches, flowers, fruits, skin, roots and soil, and shared his experience with the litchi farmers and guardians who were hired to take care of the ancient trees. Under such influence, "novice guardians" like Ke Weicong also quickly got started.
Less than 100 meters away from the Ancient Liyuan, Deng Yuhua, the head of the management of the Guliyuan of Guoxiang Group, set up a long table in the office and leisure area and brewed a new pot of tea. "Every day, we will gather here to exchange problems found during the garden inspection, and Guoxiang Group needs to collect and sort out this information to report to the top, and if necessary, apply for experts or relevant departments to intervene. Deng Yuhua said.
At present, Gaozhou City has implemented the protection of ancient and famous trees, established a long-term management and protection mechanism of "one tree, one file, one tree, one tree, one policy", and achieved three 100% coverage rates of file protection, responsibility letter signing rate, and video surveillance coverage of key ancient trees. Relying on the Guangdong Academy of Forestry as the counterpart unit of technical support, Maoming City has set up a 17-member expert group for the protection of ancient and famous trees at the same level, and there are also expert groups for the protection of ancient and famous trees in various counties and districts, with a number of 56 people. In addition, the ancient and famous trees insurance project provides millions of ambulance insurance protection, so that ancient trees can "rely on the elderly".
The video surveillance coverage rate of key ancient trees in Guli Garden has reached 100%.
Expanded tour area
Baiqiao Village Ancient Lychee Garden covers an area of more than 80 acres, with a history of more than 2,000 years of lychee planting, with 180 ancient lychee trees, of which 39 are more than 500 years old, and 9 are more than 1,000 years old, and have the reputation of "living lychee museum".
At 14:30 in the afternoon, four 55-seat tourist buses came to the parking lot at the entrance of Guli Garden, and there was an endless stream of tourists visiting and checking in. This is the busiest time of the day in the Ancient Liyuan Garden.
The designated souvenir selling area at the entrance of Guli Garden is favored by tourists
The Yuanba Avenue in the village is full of study tours
At this time, He Shuzhi rode a motorcycle through the continuous lychee forest and the Lingnan New Chinese Building Complex with a unified façade, he needed to first confirm whether the road needed coordination and support for security control and traffic maintenance, then follow up on the progress of the newly built mechanized road at a construction site, and finally return to the village committee to participate in a preparatory meeting for the event.
On the way, the villagers couldn't help but stop He Shuzhi and chat for a sentence or two. In He Shuzhi's view, although the ancient trees have been packaged and circulated, the villagers have received the corresponding compensation for the transferred land, and enjoy the profit dividends of the various operations of the ancient Liyuan, but the villagers will not lack the protection of the ancient trees. "When the ancient lychee tree is red, the average daily visitor volume of the ancient lychee garden can reach four or five thousand people. He Shuzhi said.
The gradually expanding boundary of the park under He Shuzhi's feet is inseparable from the concept of "transforming green and beautiful ancient trees into golden trees and silver trees". The realization of ecological product value and brand value feeds back the protection of ancient trees. In 2023, the amount of funds invested in the protection of ancient lychee trees in the ancient lychee garden alone will reach 1.18 million yuan.
"The canopy density of the community in Guli Garden was 0.7 the year before last year, but it dropped to 0.6 last year. He Yongxiong, a staff member of the Ecological Restoration Unit of the Gaozhou Forestry Bureau, said that the canopy density of the community refers to the degree to which the canopy of trees shades the ground, which not only reflects the density of the stand, but also relates to the forest structure and environment. "By regularly pruning and shaping the non-ancient trees around the old trees that affect their growth, we can further ensure the daylight of the old lychee trees. He Yongxiong said.
Special regulations for the protection of ancient trees
Driven by the ecological construction of "Green and Beautiful Guangdong", Gaozhou has built 5 small parks of ancient lychee trees and formed more than 20 tourist attractions with the theme of ancient lychee trees.
In 2023, the ancient tree group of Genzi Town, Gaozhou will be selected as one of the 100 "most beautiful ancient tree groups" in the country, that is, with the ancient lychee garden and Baiqiao Agricultural Innovation Park as the main line, connecting the three national lychee industry platforms of the National Lychee Germplasm Resource Garden, the China Lychee Expo and the site of the China Lychee Industry Conference and the Sweet Fruit Sea Rural Revitalization Demonstration Belt, the "Baiqiao Lecture Hall" boutique route will be opened, receiving more than 2 million tourists annually, and it will be selected as the national rural tourism boutique route of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's "Four Seasons of Good Rural Scenery".
At 7 o'clock in the evening, the twilight was dull, and the crowd in Guli Garden faded, and He Shuzhi chose to visit the garden again at this time. "There are a lot of people during the day, no one dares to mess around, it's getting dark, and you can't let your guard down. He Shuzhi's concern is not unreasonable. One night last year, someone carried a saw into the ancient Li Garden, suspecting that it was trying to steal the timber of the ancient trees, He Jinbao, the captain of the second team of Lingjiao Village, said, "Fortunately, I met it and stopped it in time and called the police to deal with it."
In 2023, the newly revised Regulations on the Protection and Management of Forests in Guangdong Province was deliberated and adopted by the third meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th People's Congress of Guangdong Province and came into force on July 1. This time, for the first time in 26 years, a special chapter has been set up for the protection of ancient and valuable trees. There are 84,390 ancient and famous trees in Guangdong, with the largest number of banyan trees, followed by lychee, and the number of ancient and famous trees in Maoming ranks fourth in the province. In October, Maoming City's first local regulation that comprehensively regulates the protection of ancient lychee trees, the Regulations on the Protection of Ancient Lychee Trees in Maoming City (Draft) (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations (Draft)"), was released to the public for comments.
Data as of August 28, 2023 Image source: Forestry Bureau of Guangdong Province
Data as of August 28, 2023 Image source: Forestry Bureau of Guangdong Province
According to the "Forest Law of the People's Republic of China", "Urban Greening Regulations" and other laws and regulations, the regulations (draft) include resource census and publication, conservation and restoration, protection and management, publicity and utilization, legal liability and other aspects. Specifically, the regulations (draft) emphasize scientificity and sustainability in terms of daily maintenance responsibility system, fruit brand building, and humanistic value utilization. It also clearly stipulates that anyone who illegally cuts down an ancient lychee tree shall be fined not less than five times but not more than ten times the value of the ancient lychee tree by the competent department of the ancient lychee tree; At present, the draft regulations have been approved by the Standing Committee of the Maoming Municipal People's Congress for the second time and can only be implemented with the approval of the Provincial People's Congress.
The last light on the horizon fell below the horizon, and the ancient liyuan returned to a rare silence with the night. He Shuzhi, who had finished his tour of the park, rode a motorcycle and met He Jinbao at the corner of the avenue, and staggered away with a sound of the horn. Tomorrow they will start their normal day of guarding the ancient trees.
【Planning】Mai Qianming, Dong Yu
【Reporter】Wang Fudi
【Editor】Chen Huiling
Source: Southern Rural Daily