Ancient wisdom of the tea tree forest #CGTN

In the Jingmai Mountain area, villages lie amid forests of tea trees. Most of the houses are wooden and built on stilts, with families living on the upper floor and livestock kept below. The roofs are used for drying tea.

Village layouts follow no strict order; houses are scattered according to the terrain. In a sign of humans coexisting with nature, no mountainsides have been cleared or forests destroyed to make way for them.

Even in the face of extreme weather caused by climate change, people here continue to use traditional construction techniques. By sourcing wood and other materials locally, they keep carbon emissions to a minimum. Environmental protection is coordinated under a “forest–tea–forest–village” model that underpins sustainable development.

Here, forests sustain the tea, tea sustains livelihoods, and humans and nature are nourished by the same pure mountain air.