SUSTAINABLE GROUNDS

An initiative started by a leading fast food chain has transformed the way farmers in Yunnan source, manage and harvest truffles, Zhang Lei reports

Sixty-year-old Duan Chaowen, a forest ranger and head of Duanjia village in remote area of Yunnan province, spends his days patrolling the mountains near his home in Yongbei town, Yongsheng county. In one valley, which he knows so well that he can practically retrace from memory, lies a rare kind of black truffle.

Like many local villagers, Duan is a veteran wild truffle hunter. Despite his best efforts over the past two decades of harvesting the valuable fungus, he has been unable to maintain a constant crop of this rare delicacy, which is dwindling rapidly by the year.