Nearly 8,000 hectares of ancient wild tea bushes and preserved cultivated tea gardens that date back more than 1,300 years on Jingmai Mountain in Pu'er explain why the place has been known as the kingdom of tea.
Local people have been treating tea as a natural treasure and taking efforts to promote tea culture. The ancient tea gardens applied to be a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site by the local government four years ago.
Ancient business
With a promotional event for tourism in Pu'er held in Beijing on Aug 25, and traditional local dance The Tribe of Va shown at the National Center for the Performing Arts at the same time, the Pu'er government introduced the once-mysterious Va ethnic group to the outside world.
The area involved includes three villages in Lancang county, where there used to be 15 villages. The area has 1,454 households with more than 6,000 people.
According to local records on ancient stele inscriptions in the Dai language, the Jingmai Mountain region has a tea growing history of 1,300 years and is home to one of the world's rarely seen cultivated ancient tea gardens.
Regarded as one of the sources of tea culture, the area preserves nearly 2,000 hectares of tea gardens with more than 3.2 million ancient tea bushes, which produce more than 2.7 million tons of tea a year.
There are also more than 2,000 hectares of ecological tea gardens, with annual production of some 6 million tons.
Well-established policies
The world cultural heritage application has won support from the city and provincial government, despite its challenges.
It took eight years for the Grand Canal to become a registered world heritage, and 13 years for the Hani rice terraces in Yunnan.
The government of Lancang county has established many teams in its application committee, including the general office, the publicity group, the protection and management enforcement group, the policy and regulation makers, and an expert panel.
An administration center and a police station were also established in the region, and a tea garden monitor team was formed with 30 officials from local villages and townships.
Village transformation
One of the major tasks in the application work is to rebuild houses in the villages that are too old and decrepit, while maintaining traditional architectural styles.
The village transformation project involves 15 villages. In those traditional villages located in the heart of the applied area, modern building materials are "absolutely forbidden', said Yang Yun, Party chief of Huimin tounship.
To encourage villagers to keep traditional styles, the county government has made policies to give subsidies when they buy building materials. It has so far provided more than 8 million tiles worth 7.2 million yuan and more than 3,000 cubic meters of wood worth 3 million yuan.
Upgraded industry
While protecting ancient tea gardens, local authorities of Jingmai Mountain have also improved the biodiversity of nearly 2,000 hectares of tea gardens in the tableland areas.
The tableland tea gardens featured high planting density and used chemical fertilizers, so the quality of their products was low, and so was the price.
The county government offers subsidies to growers to let them remove some of the tea bushes and use organic fertilizers. Farmers are also asked to add new tea breeds and grow trees to give shade.
Each hectare of the tableland tea gardens produced 1,200 kilograms of tea in the past, which was sold at below 20 yuan per kilogram. Now it produces only 450 kilograms of tea, but each kg sells at 200 yuan.
Officials of the local government said they have invested significant money and manpower to protect the ancient tea gardens on Jingmai Mountain since the application campaign started, but they need support from top experts who will help them make specific regulations.
They said they will seek multiple approaches to make the application a success.
The application progress
2010 The application campaign started.
March 2012 The first draft of the application was submitted to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
June 2012 The ancient tea gardens of Jingmai Mountain passed assessment by SACH.
September 2012 The ancient tea gardens of Jingmai Mountain were listed as a pilot site in the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
November 2012 The ancient tea gardens of Jingmai Mountain were included in the World Heritage tentative list in China.
December 2012 The Chinese and English versions of the tentative list submission form was submitted to SACH and then to UNESCO.
2013 The area was recognized as a tea source of the world by the International Tea Committee.
May 2013 The area was listed in the seventh group of national key historical heritage protection units.
October 2013 The area was listed as a provincial ethnic culture preservation zone. It is now applying to be a national 4A level tourism site.
March 28, 2014 The local government submitted the application and a protection plan to SACH.