Logging village finds a form of green redemption

In the past 53 years, Pasang Tsering's life has twice been changed by the lush forests that surround his home, but in very different ways.

Tashigang village, hidden deep in the forests of Nyingchi in the southeast of the Tibet autonomous region, has been dubbed the "Switzerland of the Orient" by Chinese netizens because of its abundance of trees. The latest official statistics show that 47.6 percent of Nyingchi is covered by forest, although that figure reaches 55.1 percent in the Bakyub district where Tashigang is located.

In 1984, the then-22-year-old Pasang felled a spruce tree with the help of five other villagers. "Six arms could barely encircle the big tree, and we used a horse and cart to transport it to a timber mill in town," Pasang recalled.