During the Spring Festival this year, on social media, a netizen eagerly sought a doctor for the family's century-old tree: "The big tree that has grown up with me since I was born, as a left-behind child, I have cried and laughed on it, only it remembers my childhood, and now it is dying, what can I do."
Although asking for help is very unpopular, the comments are all serious support. Some professional netizens analyzed that the big tree was sick because it was sucked away of water and nutrients by flowers and vines. was commented on by 15,000 likes, but it was a comment from an ordinary netizen: "I'm so moved, some humans will post a special post asking for help to treat a big tree."
For human beings, big trees are never an emotionless species, they are friends, tree holes, and the direction of home in the depths of memory. Not to mention those ancient trees that have gone through thousands of years of wind and frost, connecting history and the present, carrying the memory of the ecological era and the spiritual inheritance of a nation.
Ancient trees are emotional bonds that carry people's collective memories.
The Specification for the Identification of Ancient and Famous Trees, which came into effect on January 1, 2017, stipulates that trees over 100 years old are included in the ranks of "ancient trees". By the end of 2023, there were 85,561 ancient and famous trees in Guangdong Province, of which 87% were distributed in the vast countryside.
Standing under the ancient tree, it is like opening a history book that spans thousands of years. Looking back, the figure of the homecoming wanderer looking up at the starry sky overlaps the same posture of countless ancients under the tree; Looking ahead, it is difficult for us to answer: how many more springs can these ancient trees accompany you?
What can we do to protect ancient trees?
Ancient trees are the direction of home
"This horizontal branch is the first hanging horizontal bar for children in our village! Don't let people climb ...... now," Liu Junshi, an 88-year-old villager from Stone Village, Luoding Jiayi Town, Yunfu, sits and strolls under the banyan tree every day. The 1,036-year-old Yarong King in front of him is the pride of Stone Village. In 2019, 55 towns in the province were recognized as forest towns in Guangdong Province, and with the blessing of ancient trees, Jiayi Town became the only seedling on the list of Yunfu City.
When Liu Junshi was a child, he also liked to ask the old people in the village: how old is the big tree. "No one can tell, everyone just knows that the tree has been there since they remember." Now in the eyes of the villagers, Liu Junshi, who is nearly 90 years old, is a living dictionary of Stone Village, but he playfully told reporters: "The big tree knows more!" ”
Under the big banyan tree, it is a "paradise" for children to play and play.
In the past, the villagers did their homework, and the village discussed big and small things, and they all liked to gather under the head of the banyan tree. Whoever has a child is born must also hang a lantern on this banyan tree and make a wish and pray." For the children of Stone Village, King Yarong is a friend, a relative, a family member, a tree hole, a secret base, and a cure for insomnia.
The tree is there, the home is there, which is a sense of security that the leaves return to their roots. "We used to say that when we saw a tree, we saw the direction of home." What makes villager Liu Nan so proud is the spectacular appearance of the Yarong King: its canopy projection area is 3,000 square meters, and it takes nearly 20 adults to hug it.
Guangdong's root culture has a far-reaching influence, many places are first there trees, then villages, ancient villages, ancient temples, ancient buildings, etc. are built according to trees, and children in the village will even recognize trees as godfathers and godmothers. As a result, many people will have the tree of their own life from birth—the frolicking of childhood, the tears and laughter of adolescence, and the every stage of starting a family, it participates and witnesses all the way.
"The kapok spins in the air before it falls, and the children are waiting under the tree, and whoever grabs it will take it home to dry and make tea, which is our best drink to cool off." Recalling the picture of grabbing kapok with his friends when he was a child, Zhang Zhiqiang, a 70-year-old villager from Miaotou Village, Huangpu District, Guangzhou City, still can't help laughing.
Located in the Nanhai Temple in Huangpu District, the ancient kapok tree is as red as fire.
In ancient Guangzhou, the kapok trees were widely planted, and the more than ten trees in front of the Nanhai Temple, which has a history of more than 1,400 years, are the oldest and famous. They not only accompanied Zhang Zhiqiang's time from youth to old age, but also wrote a legend like a breathing chronicle. Nowadays, these ancient kapok trees have long become a part of the cultural relics, like a living museum, and have an irreplaceable status in terms of historical and cultural value, landscape art value, biological science value, etc.
Ancient trees are the elders who need to be cared for
In the early years, the two ancient kapok trees at the entrance of the Nanhai Temple were struck by lightning, but fortunately, the vitality is tenacious, and they can still bloom bright kapok. In Guangdong, lightning strikes, typhoons, humidity and other factors can affect the health of ancient trees. With the growth of tree age and changes in the site environment, a considerable number of ancient and famous trees will be sick, weakened, injured or even die every year, resulting in the loss of precious historical culture and genetic resources of ancient and famous trees.
Famous gardens are easy to build, but ancient trees are hard to find. The ancient tree is like an elder, giving humans a long companionship, and it also needs human care and care. Huang Huayi, an associate researcher at the Guangdong Academy of Forestry, told reporters that the maintenance and treatment of ancient trees follows the principle of "one tree, one policy", and the tree doctor evaluates and diagnoses the ancient tree, and then proposes targeted technical measures.
Ancient trees connect the past and the future, and there are also births, old ages, sicknesses and deaths.
According to the census, the number of abnormal (weak, endangered and dead trees) of ancient and famous trees in Guangdong Province accounted for about 9.1%, and the abnormal trees of ancient trees over 500 years old accounted for about 25%. Based on the total number of more than 85,000 ancient trees in the province, even if the normal trees account for the majority, the number of weakened and endangered trees should not be underestimated.
At the entrance of the Beishan Ancient Temple in Yangshan County, Qingyuan City, there are two osmanthus trees that are more than 1020 years old, which are said to have been planted by the Tang Dynasty writer Han Yu when he was the county commander. Last year's long period of humid climate caused two rare Tang Gui plants to suffer from termite diseases. When Zhuo Guojun, a forestry engineer from the Yangshan County Forestry Bureau, learned about it, he immediately launched a rescue with his colleagues.
Today, the two registered Tanggui ancient trees have been carefully cared for by future generations. According to the five-level forest chief system in Guangdong, they are taken by the entire team of forest chiefs, forest rangers, and supervisors at all levels to take turns to take care of them. In 2023, forest chiefs at all levels such as the first forest chief and the county forest chief of Yangshan County carried out about 16,000 forest patrols, and no illegal acts related to the infringement of ancient and famous trees such as tree death, felling, and transplantation were found.
The ancient Tang Gui tree in the ancient temple of Beishan is still vibrant under the care of the guardians.
In Genzhutang Village, Lanzhong Town, Huaiji, Zhaoqing, there is an ancient red tree that is more than 1,300 years old. According to the measurement of the forestry department, the red cone king tree is 26 meters high, the chest circumference is nearly 9 meters, the crown width is 38 meters, it is the largest known tree diameter in Guangdong at present, it is called the "red cone tree king", and has become the "living cultural relic" of the local ancient and famous trees. Around it, there are dozens of red cone trees that have reached the standard of ancient trees, and many generations have lived together, forming a rare group of red cone trees.
Zhang Binbin, head of the Yueshan Forest Farm in Huaiji County, told reporters that in order to protect these ancient trees, the local town government and the village committee signed a joint responsibility letter for the management and protection of ancient trees, so that every villager can join in the protection of ancient trees. "In order to protect this red spine king, the local government will implement the responsibility to the villagers, and there will be villagers who regularly check the situation of the ancient tree and report any problems immediately."
The ancient red cone tree in Huaiji, Zhaoqing, has spent more than 1,300 years with the villagers.
It is understood that most of the ancient trees in the province that are more than 500 years old have a pair of 24-hour "electronic eyes" around them. Since last year, the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau has organized the rescue of ancient and famous trees that have been rejuvenated and weakened, and implemented video surveillance protection for first-class ancient and famous trees. A number of high-tech equipment has also been used, including the PiCUS-3 elastic wave tomography diagnostic instrument, wood needle prick detector, lidar, drones, etc., to escort the health monitoring of ancient and famous trees.
Ancient trees, let the countryside blossom and bear fruit
87% of Guangdong's ancient trees are scattered in the vast countryside, witnessing the vicissitudes of agricultural civilization in southern Guangdong. Lychee trees, longan trees, yellow bark trees, peach trees, apricot trees, pear trees, sweet and fruity aroma are the tastes of childhood memories; Banyan trees, camphor trees, willow trees, plane trees, osmanthus trees, and magnolia trees also exist quietly and permanently in the stories of our youth.
According to the data of the information management system of ancient and famous trees in Guangdong Province, among the 568 kinds of ancient trees in Guangdong, the top four are: more than 19,000 banyan trees, more than 15,000 lychee trees, 6,105 camphor trees, and 3,897 longan trees.
Maoming Genzi Tribute Garden, ancient lychee trees bring sweet life to the local people.
Ye Guangrong, an engineer of Guangdong Piaozhi Green Famous Tree Protection Co., Ltd., analyzed that the composition and distribution characteristics of ancient trees fully demonstrate the relationship between human civilization and nature, "It is the agricultural planting culture, individual plant culture, religion and ancestral hall culture, development and migration culture and other elements, which jointly formed the choice of ancient trees by the ancestors." He said.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Qu Dajun's "Guangdong New Language" cloud: "The banyan is easy to be tall, the vast number of people plant feng shui, and the land will prosper if there are many banyan trees among the ruins." "Due to the frequent impact of severe weather such as typhoons and heavy rains, the ancestors of Guangdong chose to plant tall and dense native tree species to resist natural disasters, and over time formed the characteristics of high-density patchy distribution of main tree species such as banyan, camphor and oak. Lychee and longan are the famous Lingnan fruits, with excellent economic and cultural value, representing the agricultural planting and cultural system with the characteristics of the southern subtropics, and these two types of ancient trees are the huge cumulative effect of the formation of agricultural culture in Guangdong for more than 2,000 years.
The villagers have guarded the growth of the ancient trees for generations, and what is surprising is that the ancient trees still maintain their vigorous vitality, not only returning the new branches and green shade for the villagers, but also bearing new fruits.
Ancient lychee trees bear fruit every year, and the ancient lychee tree has both economic and cultural value.
In Gaozhou, Maoming, the "hometown of lychee longan", the 180 ancient lychee trees in the lychee plantation in Baiqiao Village, Genzi Town, bear new fruits every year, and the older the trees, the sweeter the fruits; The longan mother tree of more than 120 years old in Chuliang Village, Demarcation Town, can harvest more than 400 catties of fruit when the fruit is ripe; Two Guiwei lychee trees in Jue Liyuan, Xinlian Village, Xie Ji Town, which are more than 200 years old, each have an annual output of more than 1 ton, which is rare.
In order to protect the Yarong King, Stone Village built an ancient tree park, specially invited experts from the Guangdong Institute of Ecology and the Guangdong Academy of Forestry to conduct "consultations" and establish health records for each ancient tree in the park. In 2023, Guangdong will further promote the ecological construction of green and beautiful Guangdong, put forward the implementation of six major actions such as the protection and promotion of ancient and famous trees, and clearly plan to build 100 ancient tree parks by the end of 2027.
An ancient tree park has been built in Stone Village to further strengthen the protection of the "Yarong King".
With the construction of more and more fruit tree industrial parks, ancient tree museums and ancient tree parks, villagers have also opened farmhouses and sold agricultural products, attracting more and more tourists to enter the beautiful countryside and experience the charm of ancient tree culture and industry.
Ancient trees, rushing to the next spring
Ancient trees accompany us with strong vitality, but time cannot be reversed, and the aging of ancient trees is not subject to human will. In order to allow ancient trees to have more springs, Guangdong is pouring social power. The Provincial Forestry Bureau revealed that 2024 is the year of action for Guangdong to fully promote the greening of counties, towns and villages, and the "protection and improvement of ancient and famous trees" has been written into an important part of the ecological construction of green and beautiful Guangdong.
"In terms of policy, the ecological construction of Lumei Guangdong has pointed out a detailed route and direction for the protection of ancient trees; In terms of laws and regulations, the promulgation and implementation of the Regulations on the Protection and Management of Forest in Guangdong Province has provided a legal basis for the protection of ancient trees. In terms of measures, we have achieved 100% listing protection of ancient and famous trees, and 100% of them have signed a protection responsibility letter. Huang Huayi believes that Guangdong's determination to protect ancient trees is still strong enough, but there are still some practical problems that need to be solved.
Factors such as old trees and pests can endanger the lives of ancient trees.
"One is the lack of financial support, and the other is the lack of professional talents, among which the problem of poor funding channels is particularly prominent." Huang Huayi pointed out that especially in some remote rural areas, due to the lack of financial funds, it is difficult to have special funds to meet the needs of ancient tree protection.
In response to this, Ye Guangrong proposed that in addition to increasing financial investment, social forces can also be used to carry out pledges and other activities to raise funds. At the same time, all localities can also explore the ecological compensation mechanism for the protection of ancient trees, and give full play to the role of villagers in the protection of ancient trees.
Since the beginning of this year, various localities have focused on the frequent innovation of county, town and village greening construction, and widely mobilized the forces of all walks of life to plant and protect greenery. On May 10, in order to gather social forces to participate in the protection of ancient and famous trees, the Lvmei Guangdong Ancient Tree Pledge Project was officially launched on the Lvmei Guangdong Public Service Platform (please poke → 100 enterprises pledged ancient trees, and the first batch of pledges amounted to 16.9 million yuan!). The Lvmei Guangdong Ancient Tree Pledge Project was officially launched).
The guests at the meeting scanned the code and logged in to the "Lumei Guangdong Public Service Platform" to learn about the ancient tree pledging project.
It is understood that the Lvmei Guangdong Ancient Tree Pledge Project is jointly promoted by the Guangdong Provincial Greening Committee, the Guangdong Provincial Forestry Bureau, the Provincial Rural Revitalization Foundation, and the Southern Newspaper Media Group. The raised funds will be used for the construction of demonstration sites for ecological construction in Lumei Guangdong, the greening of counties, towns and villages, and the maintenance of ancient trees.
Between the pitches, the ancient trees shelter the earth and often bless my hometown. More guardians will also gather under the ancient trees to give back with awe, give back with cherishment, and work together to go to the next spring.
Sweep it
"Lumei Guangdong Public Service Platform" applet code
Participate in the Ancient Tree Pledging Project
Jointly protect the ancient and famous trees of Guangdong
【Planning】Yan Liang, Hong Jiyu, Mai Qianming
【Co-ordinator】Fan Jingdong, Li Xiaofen
【Choreographer】Chen Jiachun
【Reporter】Huang Xujun, Li Jiajia, Fan Jingdong
【Photography/Videography/Editing】Cheng Qi, Tan Jiafu, Wu Miaoheng
Source: Southern Rural Daily