Small islands turn green environment into gold

Turning over the corner, from the gap between the mountains, blue sky and clean sea refresh tourists’ eyes. With over 3,000 residents, Dachen Islands, located in East China’s Zhejiang province, are spending efforts to turn their natural beauty into a booming tourism industry.

Also known as “the Pearl of East China Sea”, Dachen Islands are mainly composed of "Upper Dachen Island" (with an area of 7 square kilometers) and "Lower Dachen island" (with an area of 4.89 square kilometers).

However, Dachen Islands were barren lands, which were not suitable for people to live. In 1955, the first volunteer team landed on the islands to embark on a campaign to reclaim uncultivated land. The voluntary reclamation ended in 1960s, by which time, two health clinics, a school and other types of infrastructure were well built. 

After generations’ efforts, Dachen Islands have changed a lot and the tourism of the islands is booming. Now on the way towards common prosperity, to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents, the whole Dachen Islands have strived to develop and promote their travel industry.

As a civil servant working for protecting environment, Jin Jian’ang said that they are trying to make the environment cleaner and greener in order to attract more tourists to the islands. 

“Clear waters and green mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver,” he quipped.

However, Jin admitted that the infrastructure on the Upper Dachen Island still needs to be improved. On the Upper Dachen Island, there are only three sightseeing cars. But at the same time, there are an unprecedentedly large number of tourists coming to the place. The drivers and tour guides are often too busy to have lunch.

“The number of tourists this summer is one third more than the same period of last year,” said Xia Guoliang, a sightseeing car driver. He doesn’t live on the island, but he comes to work here because of its booming tourism.

The business of homestay hotels has flourished as well on the Dachen Islands. Zhejiang province ranks homestay hotels as Platinum, Gold and Silver. Shi Zhaorong, the owner of “YUKA INN” which was ranked as one of the Gold homestay hotels in 2020, said that the local government has helped them a lot to open their first homestay hotel on the Lower Dachen Island, including inviting them to visit other homestay hotels, cutting down the paperwork for the hotel’s establishment and providing subsidy about 30,000 yuan (4,432 U.S. dollars).

“Dachen Islands are still developing. I believe that the islands are getting better and better, and there will be more and more businesses here,” said Shi.

Ye Wenting, who is in charge of tourism on the islands, said that, in the future, Dachen Islands will rely on their abundant resources and unique location, and fully construct “three islands (the first islands of China's red tourism, the islands of modernization demonstration, the first islands of common prosperity) and three resorts (national coastal tourism resort, national 5A-level tourist resort, and national island carbon neutral demonstration resort).”

Written by: Shi Wenshuang

Photo by: Shi Wenshuang