Zhangye city in northwest China's Gansu Province is the main area for ecological protection in the Qilian Mountains, an important shield for ecological security in the western part of the country.

However, the Qilian Mountains had once suffered from grassland degradation and ecological damage due to disorderly and excessive development.

Zhangye has made great efforts to restore the ecological environment, actively explored paths to realize the market value of green products, continued to transform lucid waters and lush mountains into invaluable assets, and blazed a new trail in prioritizing the ecological environment and pursuing green development.

Aerial photo taken on April 18, 2022 shows the scenery of a national wetland park in Zhangye, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Zhimin) 

The Shandan horse ranch in the Qilian Mountains follows the principle of prioritizing the ecological environment and pursuing green development, effectively restoring the grassland ecology. The grassland vegetation coverage of the horse ranch has increased from 80.3 percent in 2017 to 85.36 percent today. And the ranch has since developed ecotourism. Last year, its operating income reached 589 million yuan ($80.6 million) and net profit hit 129 million yuan.

"We have taken addressing ecological and environmental issues in the Qilian Mountains as our No. 1 project. Each municipal-level leader is responsible for the rectification of five to eight issues, and adopts tailored measures to address the symptoms and root causes of such issues," said An Weiguo, deputy mayor of Zhangye city.

An added that many outstanding issues have been settled and the eco-environment of the Qilian Mountains continued to improve.

In the Zhangye section of the Qilian Mountain National Nature Reserve, 117 prospecting and mining projects were shut down, and the ecology in mining areas and sites has been restored.

The Qilian Mountains have seen overall improvements in vegetation growth conditions, with the proportion of areas with significant improvements in the total protected area increasing by 37.5 percent, according to an evaluation report released by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Zhangye's air quality has reached the level-II national standard for six consecutive years. The city's forest coverage and vegetation coverage ratio of grasslands increased to 24.86 percent and 49.48 percent, respectively.

By taking measures, including establishing an ecological environment monitoring network, implementing the river chief and lake chief systems, and building a judicial coordination mechanism, Zhangye has built a monitoring and responsibility system with sufficient reach and depth to facilitate its transition toward long-term ecological conservation in the Qilian Mountains, said An.

Thanks to the city's automatic monitoring and management platform for pollution sources, real-time discharge data of enterprises can be obtained with a few clicks of a mouse.

"Once abnormal pollutant discharge data of an enterprise is detected, the platform will automatically trigger an alarm. We will promptly assign law enforcement personnel to conduct on-site inspections," said Zhang Fei, an official with the ecology and environment bureau of Zhangye.

"We ensure whole-process dynamic monitoring and risk early warning of key pollution sources and the ecological environment status across the city, realizing the full coverage of ecological monitoring and management. This allows the integrated conservation and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands, deserts and glaciers," Zhang added.

Ge Gui, deputy director of Zhangye's water authority, said Zhangye has 1,142 river and lake chiefs at the city, county, township and village levels.

The city has established a joint committee mechanism for ecological conservation and enforcement mechanism that involves political and legal organs, forestry and grassland departments, water authorities, departments of natural resources, and ecology and environment departments.

While strengthening ecological conservation, Zhangye has taken the lead in Gansu Province to promote the development of forest and grassland carbon sinks, and has made progress.

Zhangye has also accelerated the development of a modern industrial system with green features, effectively promoting the synergy between ecological protection and economic development.

The city has promoted the integration of tourism with the culture, agriculture and other sectors to boost the high-quality development of "all-for-one" tourism. In the first nine months of this year, it received 35.06 million tourist visits, generating revenue of 18.5 billion yuan, up by 1.6 times and 1.5 times year on year, respectively.

In recent years, by leveraging its advantages in energy resource endowment, Zhangye has vigorously developed renewable energy, continued to readjust its energy structure, and accelerated the construction of large-scale wind power and photovoltaic base projects in sandy areas, rocky areas and deserts, realizing the large-scale, intensive development and utilization of new energy sources.