Guiyang and Gui'an do well in forest protection

On Feb 18, government leaders and officials in Guiyang City and Gui'an New Area, Southwest China's Guizhou province, came together to participate in a tree-planting activity, reinforcing their commitment to forest protection.

From 2015 to 2023, the forest coverage in Guiyang and Gui'an increased from 45.5 percent to 55.3 percent, with 14 municipal-level voluntary tree-planting bases established.

Last year, Guiyang and Gui'an planted 6.15 million trees in areas such as the urban forest belt and major transportation arteries.

Other noteworthy examples of forest protection in these two areas include an incident on May 4, 2023. An automatic alarm popped up on the monitoring screen of the Guiyang Forest Fire Control Center, stating there was a suspected smoke spot near a forest area in Longgang town, Kaiyang county.

During this incident, the system automatically pushed real-time images and location information captured by remote video surveillance to the forestry department of Kaiyang county. The forestry department then reported to the center that the situation had been handled with no hidden fire hazards.

The rapid handling of such fire situations is thanks to the forest fire information management system of the Guiyang Smart Forestry Cloud Platform.

Furthermore, Guiyang constructed the province's first wildlife shelter and rescue center. This center protects 4,033 ancient and famous trees in the city.

Guiyang and Gui'an have also utilized their forest resources to develop the economy. They have done this by planting edible fungi, Chinese medicinal herbs, and forest vegetables.

"The quality of Chinese medicinal herbs planted in Guiyang and Gui'an is excellent, and the prices are higher than those in many other provinces, with demand exceeding supply," said Wang Changyou, head of Guizhou Qianzang Chinese Medicinal Materials Co.

Currently, the company has a planting base that spans more than 800 mu (53.33 hectares). It focuses on cultivating Chinese medicinal herb varieties such as coptis chinensis and gastrodia elata.