County village capitalizes on conservation efforts to attract visitors to remote enclave in Xizang autonomous region

Wen Guo serves tea for his guests in the sitting room of his homestay in Jeling village, Metog county, Xizang autonomous region. CHEN LIANG/CHINA DAILY

On March 14, Wen Guo and his wife, Drolma Chozong, spent nearly an entire day cleaning their house in Jeling, a village of the Monba ethnic group, in Metog county, Xizang autonomous region. The couple had been informed by the village officials that two Chinese movie stars might choose to stay in their home during their visit to the village. Later that evening, the actors and their teams arrived in the village.

However, instead of opting for Wen's homestay, which is named No 1, the actors decided to lodge separately in the village's No 2 and No 3 homestays. "We only have two single rooms available to receive guests," Wen told China Daily. "It is not enough to accommodate the actors with their assistants."

Instead, Wen's two rooms accommodated other members from the actors' teams, who came to the remote county for a week to scout potential filming locations.

"No matter who stays in our homestay, we only charge 300 yuan ($41.50) per room per night in line with this year's standardized rates for 20 rooms in our village's six homestays," Wen said.

The annual rates are the result of collective discussions among villagers, he added.

Forest with a 'tree king'

According to Wen, the village began focusing on tourism in 2020.

Huang Jiabin, an official from Nyingchi city in Xizang, was appointed Jeling's Party secretary in 2018 to help the villagers shake off poverty. "Back then, with no paved road connecting us to the outside world, I had to endure a four-hour trek from Beibeng township along a muddy trail to reach the village," Huang said.

In 2019, the local government initiated the construction of a 6.5-meter-wide cement road from Beibeng to Jeling. It sparked Huang's vision for the future of tourism in the village, prompting him to begin mapping out a blueprint for development. "Hidden in beautiful primitive forest, Jeling boasts organic tea gardens with panoramic views of several snow-capped mountains, especially Mount Namjagbarwa with an elevation of 7,782 meters," he said. "Jeling's potential for tourism is right there and is so obvious to me."

The construction of the road was completed in January 2021.

Between 2020 and 2022, Huang guided the villagers to use funds that had been allocated by the government for poverty alleviation to upgrade the village's tourism infrastructure.

In 2021, he introduced the area to Professor Lyu Zhi, a leading conservation biologist from Peking University and one of the co-founders of the Shan Shui Conservation Center, a Chinese nongovernmental organization dedicated to species and ecosystem conservation. Lyu and Shan Shui began sending researchers to conduct regular surveys on the area's biodiversity.

In April 2022, researchers from Peking University and other organizations found a 76.8-meter tree in a patch of primitive forest within Jeling's boundaries. At the time, the tree, a Bhutan white pine, was thought to be the tallest on the Chinese mainland, surpassing the previous height record of 72 meters. The research team also identified seven other trees measuring over 70 meters tall during the survey in the forest.

Although the record was later beaten by other tall trees in southeastern Xizang, the forest, known for its "tree king", has gradually evolved into a popular tourist destination and has drawn visitors, especially nature lovers, to Jeling.

The discovery has also attracted more researchers to the area, who suggested that Jeling develop homestays and ecotourism.

Huang Jiabin (front) harvests crops for villagers in Jeling while working as the village's Party chief. CHINA DAILY

Following the tide

The tourism boom in Jeling has significantly transformed the lives of Wen and Drolma Chozong.

Originally from Nanchong city, Sichuan province, 42-year-old Wen first came to Metog in 2002 to serve in the People's Liberation Army stationed in Beibeng. He served in the county for eight years and met Drolma Chozong, a Monba woman from Jeling, in 2006.

The two married after Wen left the army in 2010. The couple have two children, a 13-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son.

Since the Metog highway opened in 2013, the county has been known as the country's last to be connected by highway. "When we had just married, Jeling was a neglected and untamed piece of land," Wen said. "So we left Metog to find work in Lhasa (the capital of Xizang) and later in Sichuan."

In 2015, they decided to move back to Jeling. "Even though Jeling was remote and backward compared to my hometown, I missed the warm weather and slow pace of life here," Wen said.

Aided by a subsidy of 90,000 yuan from the government's poverty alleviation fund, the family built a two-story house in Jeling in 2017.

"Thanks to the government's assistance, we only had to use 70,000-80,000 yuan of our own savings to build the house," he said.

Their good fortune did not end there.

In October 2021, Huang managed to secure a special fund of 3 million yuan from the local government to decorate and renovate six households into homestays in Jeling. Wen's house was selected as one of the beneficiaries of this project, and he received 500,000 yuan for the upgrade.

The homestay project was completed in April 2022. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, however, they were only able to start receiving visitors at full capacity last year. "Prior to last year, we hosted researchers, bird-watchers and botany enthusiasts from time to time," Wen said. "But last year, there was an influx of regular tourists. Especially in the summer, all the village's rooms were fully booked. When there were no rooms available, people even set up tents in our courtyards."

Besides the two guest rooms, the couple also run a restaurant in their homestay, which can serve about 40 guests. They are allowed to keep any earnings they make from the restaurant, but have to share most of what they make from their guest rooms with the village, Wen said.

"We can keep 40 percent of the earnings from our rooms, but we have to give another 40 percent to repay the village's investment in the upgrade project and 20 percent to the village's cooperative, which is responsible for homestay management and infrastructure maintenance," he said.

The rules for managing the homestays were collectively established by the villagers, he added.

Besides standardized room rates, a manager selected from the villagers is responsible for distributing visitors to the homestays.

"So the homestay owners don't need to compete to draw guests to their own places," Wen explained.

In 2022, the construction of an observation platform overlooking the village's tea plantation was completed. Jeling received 15,000 visitors that year, generating revenue of over 600,000 yuan and creating around 30 jobs for villagers.

Last year, revenue from tourism amounted to about 1.2 million yuan, Wen said.

Huang Jiabin left Jeling and returned to his former bureau in Nyingchi in June. He was informed about the actors' visit and is happy to see the village's growing popularity.

"I'm sure more people will come to visit Jeling, and the villagers will have an even busier summer than last year," he said.