The mountain queen

Zhang realized this was the place for her and vowed to reforest it. She admits it was a rash decision.

"I thought simply then," she says.

"If I spent 2-3 million yuan here, even if it cost every cent I had, it might be enough. Today, I realize it was silly. I had no idea it would require farming skills, and more time and money than I had."

Photos: Wild animals in Inner Mongolia region

Zhang bought the land-use rights for 1,333 hectares from the county's forestry bureau.

"Nobody believed I could lease the land until I laid the money on the table," she recalls.

Zhang officially began restoring the mountainsides in 1997.

She lives in an abandoned village with two workers she hired. There's no electricity or mobile phone signal.

They rise at 6 am every day and only eat two meals before bed.

"Many people believe the house I live in is worse than a pigsty," she says.

"Are human needs really that complicated? A bed is enough for me."

It took her four years to learn to farm.

"I had no idea about soil, plowing, seeding and growing," she says.

"I used to catch pests one-by-one while they were on the trees, like a woodpecker, until farmers told me to lay down hay and all of the insects would nest there. Then, you remove the hay, and they're gone."

Zhang hired more than 100 farmers to climb rare trees to pick their seeds for cultivation to ensure the diversity of the mountains' flora.

Then her money started running out.

"Several million would evaporate in a year, like salt dissolves into water," she says.

Locals opposed her presence. They'd relied on the mountains for firewood and hunting.

"I told them I'm doing this for future generations, including their families. They retorted there's no point in talking about future generations if the needs of this one can't be met," she says.

"There's no way to reconcile this."