国内英语新闻:Across China: Green path to prosperity for historical red village

TIANJIN, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Scores of hairy crabs can be seen inhabiting the paddy fields of Diliubu Village in north China's Tianjin Municipality, signaling a bumper harvest is in sight.

Hao Qingshui, Party chief of the village, squats in a field as he picks up a crab. "Raising crabs in the paddy fields not only boosts our village's crop yield, but also safeguards a good environment for the crabs. Such symbiosis in nature is the door to our wealth," he said.

Two decades ago, the village relied on heavy polluters including cloth mills, printing and dyeing plants, and factories producing plastic and rubber to make its fortune. But that came at the price of the local environment, which was left badly scarred with mountains of waste and muddy gutters.

"We even had to cover our noses when crossing the village," residents recalled.

In 2015, Hao and other cadres led their fellow villagers to clear the sludge along irrigation ditches and clean up the wasteland. They began to rear crabs in the rice fields.

The locals' travails in the heat and rain paid off handsomely. The village has now seen plentiful harvests for four consecutive years. The rice fields reaped about 600,000 kg of grain in 2019, and sold more than 4,000 kg of crabs, bringing in over 2 million yuan (about 305,600 U.S. dollars). Local incomes topped 1.5 million yuan in total in the first 10 months of this year.

As growing numbers of tourists visit the rural village each weekend, the community plans to integrate ecological farming with tourism and offer a wide range of experiences including vegetable picking, raft tours, fishing and rice planting.

Green farming methods and tourism are just part of the blueprint. In 2019, Diliubu Village built its own "Long March" route and opened an education base for visitors to relive the revolutionary history of the nation's founding heroes.

The village has devised a 4 km route through natural landscapes as a tribute to the 12,500 km expedition undertaken by the Red Army. To bring history of trekking in snow-topped mountains to life, the locals used nonwoven fabrics to simulate snowy conditions.

"Our prime concern was that visitors could raise clouds of choking dust on the roads, so we opted to use white fabrics to cover the land. They can disintegrate organically and clumps of grass are free to poke through the cloth," said Hao, adding that the design details are all eco-friendly.

Since the village began its red business in June 2019, more than 300 tourist groups have traveled to the education base and visits totaled 26,000 in just half a year, allowing locals to rake in another 2 million yuan.

"The army uniforms and gunshot and cannon sound effects gave me the illusion that I was participating in history. Tugs-of-war and carrying the wounded on stretchers also enlightened me about team spirit and the struggles of revolution," said a visitor surnamed Zheng.

Years of efforts to follow a green development path have witnessed the turnaround of the once impoverished village. The per capita income of its residents hit nearly 25,000 yuan in 2020.

In December 2019, Diliubu was listed among the country's most beautiful leisure villages by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. In 2020, it was nominated as one of the country's major rural tourism spots. And green miracles continue in the red tourist village.