The county level city of Xinghua 兴化in Jiangsu province has promoted ecological transformation and green path of development to maintain growth momentum and help the farmers increase income.
Flowing water, green trees and blooming flowers, Dongluo东罗 Village in Xinghua greets the visitors with idyllic poetry.
Three years ago, Dongluo Village was still a poor village with poor living environment and dilapidated houses.
Ma Baoren, a villager泰州兴化东罗村村民 马保仁
In the past, we were surrounded by low-lying land and the crops were all soaked on rainy days. The water was dirty due to the pollution from the discarded garbage in the river. There were many floating things, and the living environment was relatively poor.
In order to control the sewage, the village invited a professional team to build an underground sewage project to connect the farmers’ home with sewage pipe networks, and the dry toilets in the villagers' homes were ecologically transformed.
Clear water projects such as dredging of rivers and dredging of water systems have also been carried out. Since 2017, the village has also joined hands with social capital to build beautiful rural villages.
Chen An, a township official泰州兴化千垛镇工作人员 陈安
Social capital undertakes village reconstruction and tourism development. The villagers can share dividends through the village collectives, which will attract funds, resources and technology to the countryside.
After the micro-shaping project, the old auditorium was turned into a spacious modern rural living room. The vacant dilapidated houses have been turned into the village canteen and leisure and entertainment service center.
The farmers turned the land for circulation and built a sophisticated home-stay and farming experience park to attract tourists to enjoy the holiday and the beautiful scenery.
a tourist 游客
The environment is very beautiful, and now life has undergone major changes as the farmers are now living buildings rather than houses with earth walls.
a villager 泰州兴化东罗村村民
The earth road has been cemented and each family has a motorbike or car.
More and more young people are returning to the countryside to start businesses. Luo Zhongyao罗忠瑶, 26, resigned from his job in Guangdong and returned to Dongluo Village as a "lobby foreman". Bu Yue卜玥, a university graduate， returned to the village to work as a tour guide. In 2018, the annual income of Dongluo Village reached 23,000 yuan.
Bu Yue, a tour guide
I used to work as a part-time tour guide for a while. I felt that my hometown was also very good. I felt that I could participate in a construction in my hometown and watch it change from an ordinary small village to the present state.
Luo Zhongyao, a villager
Of course, working at the hometown means a good life, and I found that the hometown has changed so much. The employer provides insurances and housing provident fund. The salary is higher than before.
In order to turn green water into gold mine, in recent years, local authorities have shut down many chemical companies and planted many trees. Now Xinghua has become a veritable ecological park and cultural water town.
There are 15 villages with distinctive features at all levels in Xinghua, ranking first in the province. From January to May 2019, 4 million tourists visited Xinghua to bring a total of 3.6 billion yuan in tourism revenue.
Liu Wenfeng, former head of the water conservation bureau, Xinghua泰州兴化水利局原局长 刘文凤
By transforming the water environment, we have now become a leading tourist attraction. Our aquatic products rank first in Jiangsu for 25 consecutive years.
Li Weiguo, CPC chief of Xinghua泰州兴化市委书记 李卫国
We will promote the construction of the Lixiahe Eco-economic Demonstration Zone with higher quality and greater efforts, adhere to ecological priority, green development, promote global tourism, and strive to lead the province's ecological economic development.
