Dajiao Village in Haishu has protected its forests for 34 years, with forest coverage reaching 99%
Viewed from the air, the area around Dajiao Village in Zhangshui Town, Haishu District, Ningbo, located in the heart of the Siming Mountains, is densely forested with thick shade blocking out the sun. The forest area exceeds 12,000 mu, with coverage reaching 99%. Experts from the Ningbo Forestry Bureau say this is the place with the best-protected forest resources in the entire city.
"This is the result of careful protection by several generations of villagers," said village Party secretary Xu Penghui. As early as 1976, the village issued a "logging ban," planting trees every year and strictly prohibiting felling, and finally cultivated this forest.
Who could have imagined that 42 years ago, Dajiao Village was the village with the most severe deforestation in the area, surrounded entirely by bare barren hills. In 1970, Ningbo began building the important water source Jiaokou Reservoir, and 234 households from Dajiao Village relocated from the reservoir area to the upstream area. Many villagers cut down trees extensively to build houses and even sell for money. "At that time, more than 10 hectares of forest were cut down every year, and even trees as thick as a fist were all cut down," said 65-year-old villager Xu Qiankun, who watched with his own eyes as green mountains became bare ridges.
A sudden disaster awakened the villagers who had been chasing short-term gains. Former village Party secretary Xu Wenji said that due to the lack of vegetation protection, a flash flood in the summer of 1976 destroyed more than 20 houses and large areas of farmland in the village. This made the villagers re-examine their relationship with the surrounding mountains and forests. Many villagers said with deep sorrow: "We can never engage in reckless logging again, otherwise we won't even be able to keep our homes!"
At the end of that year, the village held a commune members' meeting and unanimously passed a "forest protection covenant," beginning to close off the hills for reforestation and strictly prohibiting villagers from cutting trees. Every year during the slack farming season, the village bought large quantities of saplings and organized villagers to go up the hills to plant trees. By the spring of 1984, the village's forest had recovered to more than 4,000 mu, and the dense green shade had returned.
"To this day, the villagers of Dajiao Village have not cut a single tree for 34 years," said Xu Penghui. The last case of illegal tree cutting in the village occurred in November 1984, and he still keeps the villager's self-criticism letter. To eliminate illegal logging, the village subsequently improved the "mountain forest logging ban," stipulating a fine of 10 yuan for cutting a single tree and 9 yuan for illegally harvesting a single bamboo pole. For villagers whose daily income was less than 3 jiao at the time, the penalty was quite severe.
Since the logging ban was implemented, villagers have also faced various temptations. Especially around 2008, many surrounding villages cut down forests to convert them into sapling bases and develop the sapling planting industry, with per-mu output value reaching tens of thousands of yuan. At that time, Dajiao villagers, whose per capita annual income was only two to three thousand yuan, watched enviously and continuously demanded to plant saplings. To this end, village officials went door to door to do ideological work, reiterating that "the logging ban cannot be changed, and trees absolutely cannot be cut." The proposal to develop saplings was also voted down at the villagers' representative meeting.
Years of planting and protecting trees have rooted the awareness of "ecology first" in the villagers' hearts. At the end of last year, in order to further strengthen water source protection, Dajiao villagers voluntarily shut down all farmhouse restaurants and instead leveraged their environmental advantages to vigorously produce specialty agricultural products such as tea and bamboo shoots. The per capita income of villagers rose from more than 6,000 yuan in 2015 to more than 11,000 yuan in 2017. Currently, the village is developing ecological agriculture and rural e-commerce. Xu Penghui said: "The trees on the mountain are our greatest wealth, and we will never let them be harmed again."