Rooted in Yunling Guard the green mountains

Source: People's Daily - People's Daily

Li Xiangwang conducts a field survey. Profile photo

Biography

Li Xiangwang, born in Kunming in 1943, worked in a forest farm in Gansu in 1965, obtained a master's degree in 1979, and stayed on to teach after graduation. For more than 20 years, Li Xiangwang has been committed to the control of rocky desertification in southeast Yunnan, and has put 800,000 mu of stone mountains in green clothing. He has won the honors of "Yunling Model", "Outstanding Communist Party Member of Yunnan Province", "Advanced Individual of Retired Cadres in China" and so on.

He is a teacher, his students are not only in the classroom, but also distributed in the vast mountains and rivers of Yunnan; he is an old man, who continues to work on rocky desertification control after retirement; his footprints are all over the Land of Yunling, with 8 pairs of broken knee pads, and 800,000 acres of stone mountains are dressed in green new clothes... He is Li Xiangwang, a 78-year-old retired professor at Southwest Forestry University.

"Since the country needs it, let's do it"

In 1995, Southwest Forestry College (later renamed Southwest Forestry University) received a scientific research task for rocky desertification control. Rocky desertification control was a new topic at that time, and there were not many reference materials, and the school thought of Li Xiangwang.

Preparing for classes, managing books, taking graduate students... If he had not taken over the scientific research task of rocky desertification control, Li Xiangwang, who was 52 years old at the time, could have worked step by step until retirement. The school not only hopes for the research direction of Li Xiangwang's arboriculture major, but also attaches great importance to Li Xiangwang's responsibility.

"The experience of 14 years in the forest farm has had a great impact on my life." Li Xiangwang recalled that after graduating from university in 1965, he was assigned to Gansu to work as a forestry technician in a forest farm along the Bailong River at the foot of Minshan Mountain. Li Xiangwang's area snows nearly half the time of the year. Seed collection, seedling raising, afforestation... Stepping on the snow and turning the mountain, Li Xiangwang worked for 14 years. In the meantime, his camp forest team planted more than 20,000 acres of spruce and fir, which are now a forest.

In Gansu, Li Xiangwang has seen scenes of yellow sand and experienced a hard life, which made him realize the importance of protecting the ecology. After resuming the college entrance examination, he decided to pursue graduate school and deepened his career in arboriculture, and eventually, at the age of 35, he was admitted to graduate school and stayed on to teach after graduation.

In the 1990s, Li Xiangwang was transferred by the forestry department of Yunnan Province to write a famous muzhi of ancient trees in Yunnan Province. During this time, he discovered a rare tree species in Qiaojia County, Yunnan Province, the five-needle whitebark pine (also known as Qiaojia five-needle pine). At that time, there were only more than 20 wild individuals, and they were later listed as national key protected wild plants. Thanks to the efforts of Li Xiangwang and other researchers, the species was eventually effectively protected and has now been transplanted into more than 3,000 live plants.

He spent the first half of his life dealing with trees, and when the task of controlling rocky desertification fell on Li Xiangwang's shoulders, he did not say a word and took over the burden. "Since the country needs it, let's do it!" His wife, Lu Sujuan, a teacher at the same school, also joined in. Li Xiangwang is mainly responsible for field research, and his wife is mainly responsible for laboratory work.

Kaiyuan City, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, is an area where the phenomenon of rock desertification is more serious, and it is also the base for Li Xiangwang to carry out his work. He could not forget the scene he saw on his first expedition to the rocky desertification area: the rolling stone mountains could not be seen at a glance, the soil was barren, and there was no grass.

Let trees grow in the cracks of the stones, this is Li Xiangwang's job.

"In the cracks of the stone, there are really trees"

With no predecessor research to refer to and the necessary basic data, Li Xiangwang took a step forward, starting from the Riverside of Honghe Prefecture at an altitude of 246 meters, all the way to the Great Black Mountain at an altitude of more than 2,700 meters in Beige Township, Kaiyuan City, and climbing the mountains in the rocky desertification area of Honghe Prefecture. For different altitudes, slopes, aspects, different soils, topographic conditions, and different types of primary and secondary vegetation, he and his colleagues conducted surveys and monitors, and finally collected more than 10,000 data.

During the day, I enter the mountains and test fields, and at night, I also have to learn the knowledge of ecology, climatology, plant physiology, soil science, afforestation and other disciplines. "Usually in school, on Friday night, I have to take a train to the experimental base in Kaiyuan City, work non-stop for a few days, and then rush back to school." Since then, Li Xiangwang has hardly had a rest day.

The climate of the rocky desertification area is arid and the soil is infertile, so Li Xiangwang first found a group of tree species suitable for local growth. From the data collected earlier, Li Xiangwang screened out more than 50 tree and grass species, simulated the climatic and temperature conditions at different altitudes, and did seed germination experiments.

Eventually, a native tree species called white gun pole, as well as yongchun locust and Dianyang, entered their research horizons. However, these 3 tree species belong to the same tree, and if there are too many tree species of the same type, the probability of diseases and insect pests is greater. Li Xiangwang also began to study the combination planting of different tree and grass species, screened out the Qiao shrub grass species that meet the characteristics of different climates and soils, and explored the seedling and afforestation methods of different tree and grass species.

Slowly, the stone mountain becomes a green mountain, and animals appear on the green mountain, and the animals bring new plant seeds... Species diversity in the treatment area began to form, soil fertility increased, and a virtuous circle began.

"In the cracks in the stones, trees really grow!" Li Xiangwang said with a smile.

"The reputation of the people is the best praise for us"

In 2003, Li Xiangwang retired, and some institutions hired him as an expert consultant, but he politely refused, continued to stand on the podium to teach the knowledge of rock desertification control, taught the villagers the technology of cutting seedlings by hand, and taught afforestation technology to the migrant worker brothers at the stone desertification control site... "In fact, studying the control of rock desertification for more than 20 years is far from enough. Li Xiangwang said that some tree species may take more than 20 years to figure out their characteristics, and there is no standard model for rocky desertification control, which can only be adapted to local conditions and constantly explored.

For more than 20 years, Li Xiangwang's scientific and technological achievements have been promoted to an area of more than 800,000 mu. In Kaiyuan City, for example, the survival rate of afforestation before 1996 was only 50%, and now it has reached 85%, and the forest coverage rate has also increased significantly.

"Over the years, I, along with the technicians of the forestry department, have been in the hot sun, stepping on rubble, falling countless times, and overturning countless hills." Li Xiangwang said that due to long-term climbing, his joints are seriously worn, and he must wear knee pads when traveling. In his home, 8 pairs of worn knee pads have been preserved, which are the best testimony of Li Xiangwang's over the mountains over the years. Even so, in his ancient years, he still traveled to various counties (cities, districts) of comprehensive treatment of rocky desertification in Yunnan, cooperated with other experts and scholars to complete the "Zoning of Comprehensive Management of Rocky Desertification in Yunnan Province" and "Research on the Technical Regulations for comprehensive management of rocky desertification in Yunnan Province" and other works, and continued to promote the theoretical research of comprehensive management of rocky desertification in Yunnan.

Li Xiangwang still remembers a small incident on the business trip. Once, on the train back to Kunming, he heard a passenger sighing out the window: "This used to be full of stone mountains, but now there are so many trees popping up in the cracks of the stones!"

This made Li Xiangwang ripple in his heart: "The reputation of the common people is the best praise for us!"

People's Daily (1 November 2021, 10th edition)