“It’s expected that this year’s output will exceed 200 tons, and the output value will achieve more than 2 million yuan.” Cao Xiaoliu, head of a kiwifruit planting base in Shangdong Village, Sandu Town, Zixing City, said.  

 

In 2014, Cao Xiaoliu, a demobilized soldier, returned to his hometown to start a business. He transferred more than 300 mu (20 hectares) of wasteland in the village to plant kiwifruit. The reason why he dared to give a try in a field he was unfamiliar with was that it is promising to develop industries in his hometown where great changes have taken place.

 

Sandu Town used to be an important industrial town in Zixing City. Zixing Mining Bureau, one of the three major coal mining bureaus in Hunan, was located in the town. However, as coal resources is being exhausted, Zixing Mining Bureau and ten-odd town and village coal mines have been closed. 

 

Therefore, Zixing city has successively implemented the comprehensive treatment project of mining subsidence area in Beixiang Area and the transformation and upgrading project of independent industrial and mining area in Sandu Town, so as to solve such problems as ecological restoration, infrastructure construction and industrial development in the mining area. 

 

Zixing has invested several billion yuan in the restoration of the coal mining subsidence areas since 2006. It has focused on solving problems of housing, schooling, medical treatment, electricity and transportation for over 18,000 people in the subsidence areas. 

 

Apart from coal mines, Zixing city also boasts rich natural resources, especially the natural resources of Dongjiang Lake. Dongjiang Lake has a water surface of 160 square kilometers, a water storage of 8.12 billion cubic meters and excellent water quality. It’s an important strategic drinking water source in Hunan province. 

 

It’s important to find sustainable development opportunities to avoid urban decay because of exhausted mining resources. Protecting and making good use of Dongjiang Lake water resources is Zixing’s greatest advantage in realizing sustainable development. 

 

In recent years, Zixing city has made great efforts to implement the principle of “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” and promote green and sustainable development. 

 

The city has promoted the strategic position of Dongjiang Lake in ecological environment protection from different aspects. A series of policies and systems were issued to strengthen efforts on ecological environment protection of Dongjiang Lake.  

 

To protect Dongjiang Lake, 17 legal mining enterprises with a total value of more than 50 billion yuan in Dongjiang Lake areas were shut down. The projects such as comprehensive improvement of rural environment, cage culture and pig cultivation improvement were implemented simultaneously. 1.6 billion yuan was raised to explore a new comprehensive management mode in Dongjiang Lake basin; the fields, rivers and lakes in the basin have been comprehensively controlled. Now, the overall water quality of Dongjiang Lake has maintained the national Class I Standard for drinking water for a long time, and the outbound water quality has maintained Class I for surface water for a long time. 

 

In addition, the city has also laid emphasis on green development in urban construction. The urban per capita park green space area is 10.95 square meters; 76.2% of the city is covered with forest; the number of good air quality days in urban areas throughout the year was 351, and the proportion of good air quality days reached 95.9%. The city was awarded the “National Garden City” in 2019.

 

“We will strengthen efforts on ecological governance, constantly improve the quality of ecological environment, strengthen the ecological security barrier, form a ‘Zixing-style’ for sustainable utilization of water resources and green development, and build a modern beautiful Zixing.” Yang Licheng, secretary of the CPC Zixing Municipal Committee, said at the 13th Zixing Party Congress. 

 

It’s now the peak season for selling fruits. On Dongjianghu Dam Wharf, the seasonal fruits such as golden plums and yellow peaches are transported to all over the country. Fruit planting is now the most important economic source for the people living around the lake.

 

However, since the 1990s, cage aquaculture has been the largest industry around the lake. In order to resettle the residents relocated from other places as soon as possible, the local government encouraged locals to develop cage aquaculture, which led villagers to become rich. But the water quality of Dongjiang Lake was affected by the large-scale cage aquaculture. 

 

The city immediately took measures to change this situation and banned all cage aquaculture and fishing in early 2020. Some “two-oriented” industries such as ecological agriculture, ecotourism and related service industries were developed to promote the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and promote the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Relying on the unique ecological advantages of Dongjiang Lake, featured industries such as citrus, small fruits and tea, the ecological food industry have been developing rapidly. 

 

On the basis of beautiful Dongjiang Lake, Zixing has fully implemented the “tourism plus” and “plus tourism” strategies, continued to develop all-for-one tourism featuring water resources, and explored an experience model of sustainable utilization and green development of water resources. Sightseeing tour, homestay tour, rural tour, experience tour and industrial tour are gaining momentum, including Dongjiang Lake, Liuhuawan, Yunwu Mountain and Tsingtao Beer Cultural Experience Center. In 2020, the city received a total of over 12 million tourists and generated a total tourism income of over 11 billion yuan. 

 

In promoting the transformation of a resource-exhausted city, Zixing has paid great attention to industrial transformation, encouraged the technological transformation of advantageous enterprises such as energy, building materials and nonferrous metals, guided non-ferrous metal enterprises to develop an intensive-processing and green road, closed many high energy-consuming and high-polluting enterprises, with an outdated production capacity of 1.29 million tons. Now Zixing’s solid waste recycling of non-ferrous metal, microcrystalline graphite and other technical standards lead the country.