Eric's Insight: Mt. Jingmai listed as World Heritage, heralding greener growth in Yunnan

Following Lijiang old town, three parallel rivers, stone forest karst, Chengjiang fossil site and Honghe Hani rice terraces, the Old Tea Forests of the Jingmai Mountain in Pu’er was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site at the ongoing 45th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Saudi Arabia on September 17.

As Yunnan's 6th entry to the list and the first World Heritage related to tea, the cultural landscape of Mt. Jingmai will serve as an exceptional example for the understory tea cultivation traditions, where different plant species, as well as the ethnic folks and natural surroundings, exist in harmony. The tilte will also boost the green and sustainable development practices in Yunnan province and beyond.

An example for man-nature harmony

Located in Lancang Lahu autonomous county in southwest Yunnan’s Pu'er city, the Jingmai cultural landscape consists of five well-preserved old tea forests, three protective barrier forests and nine ancient villages in the old tea forests, and it was developed over a thousand years by the Blang and Dai peoples following practices that began in the 10th century.

The ancient tea forests in Jingmai Mountain is a typical example for the traditional understorey-cultivation method that responds to the specific conditions of the mountainous ecosystem and subtropical monsoon climate. The farming practice embodies the plain eco-ethics of respecting nature and the eco-wisdom of harmonious coexistence, telling the long history of tea culture in Yunnan and China at large. This can be appreciated from the following three levels.

First, the friendly interaction between ethnic ancestors and natural elements. Some 1,000 years ago, Pa Aileng, legendary ancestor of the Blang ethnic group, led his tribe and migrated to the Jingmai Mountain, where wild tea trees accidentally saved them from an ongoing epidemic. "Tea saved our ancestors, so we worship and plant tea as a part of our lives," said Su Guowen, a provincial inheritor of Blang traditional culture. Following the epidemic, the Blang, Dai and other ethnic groups gradually learned to domesticate the wild tea trees and formed the tea-ancestor worship.

Second, the ethnic harmony among the Blang, Dai and other peoples. To provide perfect condition for tea growth, the Blang, Dai and other ethnic groups in the Jingmai Mountain jointly observed the natural elements in detail and learned to keep plants beneficial to the growth of tea trees and remove those that are tea-threatening. In this way, the light and nutrients are skillfully distributed, improving the quality of tea, and in the joint caring for the old tea trees, the ethnic groups began to forge a sense of unity and harmony, laying foundation for today’s community of the Chinese nation.

Third, the harmonious coexistence of plants in the old tea forests. The current tea forests in the Jingmai Mountain themselves represent a complete ecosystem, showcasing a three-tier vegetation structure of "arbors, shrubs and herbs” that are independent. The upper layer is the taller and stronger banyan trees, camphor trees and other arbors that stand against pests and gales and offer shade to tea trees and other shade-loving shrubs in the middle, while the lower ferns and lichens on the ground make water and soil retained, supplying tea bushes and lofty arbors with nutrients.

Like coffee or cocoa, tea is a highly popular plant beverage without alcohol. Originating in China, it is favored by billions of drinkers worldwide. When it comes to Chinese tea varieties, the Yunnan tea brands like Pu’er and Dianhong are frequently mentioned. In particular, Pu’er tea has been highly praised by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi as the tastiest in the world, partly for its benefits to our stomach.

The UNESCO’s adoption of Jingmai Mountain as a World Cultural Heritage site fully shows the unique charm of the tea cultural landscape of Jingmai Mountain, further enhancing the reputation of Yunnan’s Pu'er tea in the international community, and it will also bolster China's position as the birthplace of tea cultivation and as the leader in tea-culture communication in the world.

A driver for sustainable development

Yunnan province is embracing resource-based economic development, and given the rich provincial resources in tea, coffee and other economical plant species, the inscription of Jingmai old tea groves onto UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site list will instill new impetus into Yunnan’s green economic development that is underpinned by sustainable farming and cultural tourism. Here, the key is to keep a balance between development and conservation.

"Quite excited, but the World Heritage status is just the first step. Now I’m think more about the future: How to manage the upcoming crowds of tourists? How to better balance heritage protection and economic development, and how could we possibly create a Jingmai Mountain model based on social equity and sustainable development?” said Chen Yaohua, director of Peking University's World Heritage Research Center, who has led studies on the Jingmai site for the past 12 years.

For one thing, the World Heritage Site status of Mt. Jingmai means more responsibility for Yunnan locals to protect the Jingmai site and more oversight from the international community. To make the old tea forests greener, the province needs to further sum up its successful experiences, learn more from international practices, and improve the long-term mechanism for ecological conservation.

"The heritage status has been conferred to honor the creation of our ancestors, but the preservation of that heritage depends on us. We need to carry forward our traditional values and keep in mind the sayings of our ancestors -- preserving the land and the tea trees is saving gold for our offspring," said Su Guowen, a senior practitioner of the tea-spirit worship ceremony of the Blang ethnic people in Mt. Jingmai.

Actually, locals have formulated quite a few practices for sustainable agriculture. In the conservation of ancient tea forests, for example, Jingmai villagers have followed the local rules of “no fertilizer”, “no pesticide”, “no summer picking in the old tea forests” and “using barrier forests to protect tea groves from gales, pests and diseases”. "We allow cattle in Mt. Jingmai for they eat weeds and their waste nourishes tea trees, but we never raise sheep that may bite tea leaves," said Yan Sailuan, head of Jingmai Village.

For the other, the World Heritage Site status of Mt. Jingmai also means more opportunities for local economic growth if the eco-conservation measures are implemented effectively. Through the World Heritage title, Mt. Jingmai will be subsidized by the World Heritage Fund, a direct driver for local growth, and by putting Jingmai into the global spotlight, the old tea groves will invite more tourists to Yunnan for sight seeing and tea-culture appreciation. This will give a strong pull to local sectors of catering, retailing, transportation and entertainment.

While developing more tea-related specialties for global visitors, the Jingmai villagers could also learn synthetic farming from their peers in the Hani terraces in south Yunnan’s Honghe prefecture, another cultural landscape listed as a World Heritage in 2013. By simultaneously breeding "rice, fish and ducks" in their paddy fields, local farmers has increased their per capita disposable income from 3,928 yuan in 2013 to 12,502 yuan in 2023. This can be inspiring for Jingmai villagers, who have already been familiar with symbiosis in the old tea forests.

At the provincial level, the World Heritage status of Mt. Jingmai offers an opportunity for Yunnan to bolster open-regional development. In the world-heritage list, quite a few sites belong to coffee and cocoa growing or production, but Mt. Jingmai is the only one related to tea planting so far. Given its geographical proximity and cultural similarity to the South and Southeast Asian countries, Yunnan is expected to increase agricultural cooperation and tea cultural exchanges with countries along the Ancient Tea-Horse Road, such as Myanmar, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. This will be conducive to faster regional economic development and more World Heritage statuses in the regions.

Writing by Wang Shixue; Proofreading by Zu Hongbing; Photos by Chen Fei