Tianjin's planned ecological barrier taking shape

Every day, 76-year-old Chen Jialin, and his 74-year-old wife, Ye Baorong, visit 10-mile Rice Field in the Jinnan district of Tianjin to take selfies and record videos to post on their social media accounts.

"This is a brand-new, picture-worthy place in the city and can be a destination that showcases our 'moderately prosperous' lives, or xiaokang lives, for us as retired farmers," said the couple, who have lived here since they were young.

The picturesque field is a newly established ecological area in the coastal city.

With the rice field, lakes, grassland and forest together covering 736 square kilometers, it's the top ecological protection campaign in the city.

In October, the city announced a plan to set up the new area across five districts－Binhai New Area, Dongli, Xiqing, Jinnan and Ninghe.

"We aim to establish a green, ecological barrier between the downtown and the coastal area of the city－the Binhai New Area－in a bid to implement President Xi Jinping's concept that 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets'," said Lu Hong, director of the Tianjin Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources.

"We expect this massive project to become a new chapter in the city's ecological history," she noted.

In addition, the area will also benefit the ecology in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the first of its kind amid the coordinated development among the three areas, said Zhou Changlin, deputy head of the Tianjin Academy of Urban Planning and Design.

To date, the city has initiated 160 projects related to the barriers, and some other projects are in the pipeline.

Wetland restoration

In another development, in recent years the city has invested about 8 billion yuan ($1.16 billion) to restore a 230-sq-km wetland area in the Qilihai section of Ninghe district.

The total planned investment will reach 17 billion yuan for the project.

The wetland area is located at one of the three existing ancient coastal shores, where many illegal homes as well as fishing and crab cultivating businesses had been located.

Chen Li, director of the administrative committee of the Qilihai, said 230 illegal construction sites have been removed from the wetland area and 25,000 people have been relocated.

Local villagers applauded the efforts and the benefits from new government-initiated collective-ownership businesses such as crab and rice cultivation projects.

Du Naihe, a local villager in the wetland area, told China Daily that he was previously engaged in crab cultivation there, but such cultivation "harms the environment at the ancient sea bank". He has joined the new government project.

"Now I could net a profit of 5,000 yuan for each mu (1/15th of a hectare) each year," he said. He now earned combined annual profits of about 1.5 million yuan, about 10 times the income of an ordinary white-collar worker in downtown Tianjin.

More importantly, the wetland restoration project benefits local ecological recovery.

The number of observable migrant birds in the area rose from 100 varieties in 2017 to more than 250 this year, Yu Zenghui, a biological expert in the district, told reporters.

According to the city's land development data, the Qilihai wetland will merge with the Green Ecological Barrier in 2025.

"For centuries, Tianjin has been touted as the 'estuary of nine rivers and the shore of heaven', with sufficient water resources and magnificent scenery.

"The two massive ecological protection campaigns are expected to revive the ancient beautiful scenery and create new legends from generation to generation," Lu noted.