Culture in China: Exploring the ecological wisdom that has lasted for thousands of years

The Chinese nation has always respected and loved nature. The Chinese civilization, which has lasted for more than 5000 years, has nurtured a rich ecological culture. A series of reports, Cultural Journey in China, will take you to visit the "living fossil" of Chinese agricultural civilization and taste the cultural heritage of ecological wisdom.

At the beginning of June, the summer grain in Taihu Lake basin entered the harvest season. "Su Lake is ripe, and the world is full". Now people are familiar with the "land of plenty" in the south of the Yangtze River. What is little known is that thousands of years ago, it was still a watery land, not suitable for farming. It is the unique local water conservancy irrigation project - Taihu Lougang that has turned the vast beach into a fertile land of thousands of miles. These artificial rivers stretching inland from Taihu Lake are called Liugang. The intensive cultivation of "high for vegetable fields, low for paddy fields, and fish farming in ponds" has created the richest granary and silk town in China.

Today, the wisdom of ecological cycle is still being inherited and developed. Before a new round of rice sowing, farmers should plant alfalfa at the edge of the field to better maintain the biodiversity and ecosystem balance in the field.

Luo Haowei, a farmer from Qianshanxia Village, Wuxing District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province: I was born in the countryside and like to deal with land. The Liugang Project is a project full of ancient wisdom. We should learn from history and carry forward in real life.

Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, also located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, was once a "flood corridor" where the Yellow River seized the Huaihe River and emptied into the sea. In such an adverse environment, local people actively resist floods and reclaim wasteland, gradually forming a stacking agricultural model of supporting boats to farm.

Recently, mud is a unique agricultural work in piling fields. The river bottom mud rich in organic matter and trace elements is taken out and used as ecological fertilizer to irrigate the fields. Nowadays, excavators have begun to replace manual dredging, which can not only increase soil fertility, but also dredge rivers and improve water quality.

In the Chengdu Plain, thousands of miles away, paddy fields are like mirrors, and transplanting is busy. There are more than 30000 irrigation canals, large and small, flowing with clear water like this. They have a common source, Dujiangyan. This great water conservancy project with a history of more than 2000 years was built according to the flood law of Minjiang River and the terrain characteristics of the hanging river in Chengdu Plain. Since then, Sichuan Basin has become a land of abundance from drought and flood.

The water in Qin Dynasty flows to the east, which has enriched Tianfu for 2000 years. Today, traditional weir construction methods such as bamboo cages and dry pebble masonry continue to benefit the people through the combination of modern technology and materials. The newly built digital twin system of Dujiangyan headworks can realize the "one key direct access" of water resources allocation from the source to the field.

In Qinba Mountains of Shaanxi Province, the scenery of Fengyan terraces is as poetic as its name. The terraced fields, scattered houses and people busy planting seedlings are like a landscape pastoral poem and painting.

Fengyan terraces are the largest and best preserved ancient terraces in Qinba Mountains of Shaanxi Province. The irrigation system consisting of "fields, canals, ponds and streams" realizes the most effective gravity irrigation with the simplest engineering facilities, the least maintenance and sustainable engineering management.

Li Quanbing, senior engineer of Hanyin County Water Conservancy Bureau, Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, said that the use of the force of nature and the momentum of mountains is very consistent with what we call the sponge concept of natural accumulation, natural penetration and natural purification. It is like a dendriform capillary system to ensure the irrigation water supply of terraces.

The human wisdom integrated with the beauty of nature perfectly explains that "mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand are the community of life". In the ecological landscape of Chinese civilization, the most beautiful China is in front of us.

(CCTV reporter He Li, Wang Chen, Zhou Peipei, Zheng Yizhe, Xu Ping)