Report reveals blooms of beautiful countryside

Wuyishan

Wuyishan, a county-level city in Fujian province, has turned strengthened ecological protection into a driver of rural vitalization, helping villages near a World Heritage Site and national park move beyond the old dilemma of "living poorly beside rich natural resources".

The city, home to 115 administrative villages and 89,000 rural residents, is the only one in China with both UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage status and a national park. Local authorities have placed conservation first while developing tea, tourism, bamboo and water-related industries.

A 4,252-square-kilometer buffer zone has been designated around Wuyishan National Park to protect the core area through differentiated management. The city also spends more than 42 million yuan ($6.2 million) a year on ecological compensation and has invested 66.65 million yuan to buy back 1,200 hectares of commercial forest in key ecological areas.

The proportion of water bodies rated Grade II or better in terms of water quality has remained at 100 percent for the past three years, while the city's forest coverage stands at 80.5 percent and the share of days with good air quality has reached 100 percent. Since 2015, when the national park pilot program began, 44 new species have been recorded.

China has a five-tier quality system for surface water, with Grade I the best. Water at Grade III quality is considered good enough for most aquatic organisms to live in.

Green farming has also expanded. Wuyishan has built 8,840 hectares of eco-friendly tea gardens, accounting for 90 percent of its tea plantations, and sediment loss from tea gardens has fallen by more than 45 percent. Rural sewage treatment rose from 69.1 percent in 2022 to 98.2 percent in 2025.

In 2025, the city received 17.56 million tourist visits and generated 26.21 billion yuan in tourism revenue, while its tea industry chain reached 15 billion yuan in output value.