Walking in Gaoyiling Scenic Area in Suxian District, Chenzhou City, you will be deeply impressed by its beautiful landscape. Its green mountains and clear waters are not only a gift of nature, but also outcomes of efforts made by the CPC Suxian District Committee and the government of Suxian District since 2019 to promote the construction of the Innovation Demonstration Zone of the National Sustainable Development Agenda, vigorously implement ecological protection and improve the environmental governance system.
In recent years, Gaoyiling Scenic Area, focusing on such issues as tailings cleaning, soil erosion prevention and garbage disposal in accordance with policies, has steadily promoted ecological environmental protection and fully implemented the “Tourism Plus Environmental Protection” action so that tourists can enjoy its green ecology. Now, Gaoyiling Scenic Area becomes an internet-famous site which attracts thousands of tourists to come here.
Measures taken to recover the clear water
Located at the junction of Chenzhou City and Zixing City and within Feitian Mountain Scenic Area, Gaoyiling Scenic Area is known as “the place left behind by God” with its Danxia landform rarely seen in the rest of the world. Feitian Mountain is a famous historical and cultural mountain where renowned geologist Xu Xiake once paid a visit. Gaoyiling is also rich in red culture of southern Hunan.
In 2016, with the construction of Chenzhou-Yongxing Highway, the ecological environment of Gaoyiling which covers an area of 11 square kilometers was gradually known by people. A medium-sized ash dam for discharging processed tailings stood at the foot of the mountain before.
In May 2019, Chenzhou was approved by the State Council as a key city in constructing the Innovation Demonstration Zone of the National Sustainable Development Agenda.
The CPC Suxian District Committee and the government of Suxian District implemented the policy to develop the scenic area. Under the principle of ecological and natural restoration, the district, through the investment promotion, attracted Beijing Shunfeng Group to invest more than 300 million yuan in cleaning up floating rubbish, planting reeds for dust retention, and restoring vegetation coverage and dealing with tailings, which cost a huge number of manpower and machinery equipment. In spite of the difficulty and time-consuming
work due to its complex terrain, the watercourses finally recovered their original limpidity.
Afforestation to recover the green mountains and rivers
Gaoyiling belongs to Danxia landform in the late stage, which would be worn away by rain at a speed of 0.8 meters every ten thousand years. The rain flowing downwards along the steep cliff would scour the soil, resulting in the loss of soil and water of plants at the top and the sides of the mountain.
Since 2019, officials responsible for developing the scenic area have figured out the problem and then spent a huge sum of money covering with more soil and transplanting tree species near the scenic area that are likely to survive in order to prevent soil erosion. The vegetation that has taken root can not only cover the ground, intercept the rainfall, slow down the flow rate, disperse the flow volume, filter the silt, and consolidate and improve the soil, but also improve the barren Danxia landform and alleviate the water erosion.
And now green and lush trees make Gaoyiling an even more beautiful scenic area.
Garbage disposal to protect the ecological environment
Before its development, Gaoyiling, whose beautiful scenery enchanted countless tourists, was in fact a dangerous place to visit due to its precipitous terrain. As an internet-famous site, it was a total mess full of garbage thrown by tourists.
Garbage cleaning has been a top priority since the development of Gaoyiling, and still a difficult task to do due to the precipitous terrain. Garbage collected by workers on the mountain surface would be transported to the mountain foot by trailers. But the floating garbage on water surfaces had to be all cleaned by professionals with the help of cliff ropes, which is a very dangerous job.
In October 2021 when the scenic area was open to the public, a number of sites for storing garbage were set up to motivate tourists to throw garbage following the rules.
Besides, certain personnel were assigned to inspect and clean up the garbage at each site and the stored garbage would be transported to the designated place for disposal.
