Villagers transform 'wasteland' into garden

By Zhang Xiao ( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2012-04-13

Farmers fromWudang Mountain Baxianguan Village planted trees to keep a wasteland in the central area clean on April 9.

Wang Guofu, village party branch secretary, said: "it took nearly a year to cultivate the wasteland so that the China Village Chief Harmonious Botanical Garden will be built there".

"The 12th Country Village Chiefs Forum" will be held in Baxianguan Village in September. More than a thousand village chiefs will attend and each village will plant a tree in the botanical garden to represent friendship.

Some trees were brought by village chiefs and some were prepared by Baxianguan Village.

The China Village Community Development Association will host the forum. The prior 11 forums were held in villages in developed areas of the country.

Tengtou Village, selected as one of the "World Top 10 Harmonious Village" in Fenghua, Zhejiang Province sent saplings to the botanical garden.

With over 660,000 villages in China, Baxianguan has received 660 saplings of 66 rare species, such as the taxus, five-needle pine, magnolia, scrambled eggs tree, schima, metasequoia, triloba and more.

"China Village Chief Harmonious Botanical Garden" holds numerous botanical species and has become a major attraction in Wudang Mountain.

Edited by Fu Bo and Tom McGregor