Forest protectors of Tongbai Mountain, the birthplace of the Huai River
By: ajcarapella
By Waterkeepers China Communications Associate Katherine Olson
When Yalun, the program director for Upper Huai River Waterkeeper in China, told me we’d be staying at a village with a total of one household, I thought he was joking, or that I’d heard wrong – where in this country of 1.3 billion people is there anywhere with just one lonely house all by itself? But as we trekked up the side of Tongbai Mountain, up a skinny and winding road accessible only by foot or by motorcycle, I began to feel just how uninhabited this part of the mountain was. There was no one but ourselves, the birds, the bugs, and the burbling of the roadside stream, one of the Huai River’s countless headwaters. After over an hour of walking, a house and a courtyard appeared out of the mist: the home of Yalun’s friend and an old volunteer of Upper Huai River Waterkeeper, Grandpa Wong, who we would be staying with for the night. As soon as the cheerful and eccentric Grandpa Wong appeared in the doorway to greet us, we knew the trip up this mountain would be more than worthwhile, and we were excited to hear his story.
Grandpa Wong has lived on Tongbai Mountain since the age of 13 — at the time, his family’s move from the countryside to the mountain was based solely out of desperation to survive during economic hardship, as wild vegetables and fruits were much easier to come by in the mountain’s thick, uninhabited ancient growth forests. From a very young age, Grandpa Wong was taught the importance of protecting and nourishing the forest in order to maintain a healthy ecology and find food to eat. Although the hard times that drove his family up the mountain came to an end decades ago, Grandpa Wong never left — instead of living in the mountain for the sake of his own survival, he stayed for the sake of protecting the ancient growth forest and the fragile ecosystem of the Huai River headwaters.
The 690-mile-long Huai River, which passes through 181 cities in 5 provinces, is formed from a complex network of thousands of tiny streams within Tongbai Mountain. Without forest protectors such as Grandpa Wong patrolling the mountain and fighting off illegal logging activities, the precious ancient growth forests would be extremely vulnerable to destruction – and without those forests, the vast web of streams from which the Huai is born would be susceptible to erosion and pollution. The river’s life would be in danger before it really ever began at all. Thanks to the hard work of the Tongbai Mountain forest protectors, the natural ecology of the forest and river both have been retained, and the Huai River’s birth takes place as nature meant it to.
Now, Grandpa Wong is up there in years — it’s difficult for him to make his rounds in the forest as he once did, let alone fight with loggers. Fortunately, the local government has recognized the importance of retaining the natural ecology of the forests that give life to the country’s third-longest river, and the improving state of the nation’s economy makes people less and less willing to take part in the exhausting and risky work of stealing trees off the remote mountainside when there are other less taxing employment options elsewhere. Grandpa Wong can finally rest and relax in his misty and peaceful courtyard, enjoying the sound of the birds, the rustle of the leaves, and the burbling of the Huai River, knowing the forests he worked so hard to protect are safe at last.