Where trash was once king

He reported on problems in forestry and animal husbandry that threatened not only the environment but people's livelihoods, but also told of the opportunities that lay before Gannan thanks to its special location.

In the 13th century Gannan had become the center of tea-and-horse trade between the Han and Tibetan ethnic groups. It took 28 days to reach Lhasa, 1,400 kilometers away, riding a horse starting from the monastery, Fei wrote.

In the 1980s businesses in Lhasa were also mainly run by those of the Tibetan ethnic group from Gannan, he wrote.

Fei concluded that Gannan, believed to have been the frontier where the Han and Tibetan ethnic people had their first contacts, could serve as the springboard for the Tibetan ethnic group to join in the modernization that China was then experiencing.

For him, it was important to protect the environment, to restore forests and exercise careful control over grazing while developing education and industry.

Thirty years later, Fei's views had inspired the locals to build a trash-free Tibetan autonomous prefecture and develop green tourism as one of the pillar industries to improve people's incomes. Among those locals were a young woman named Zhao Norjinma and her family.

On a summer's day in 2009 the family, from a Tibetan village in Zhuoni county of Gannan went to a flower festival in the town of Yeliguan, Lintan county, about 79 kilometers away.

The four spent the day visiting local tourist attractions, and given the long journey back home they decided to stay for a night in a guesthouse in the town. When they had arrived by bus earlier they had seen a row of white-walled, blackroofed shabby bungalows.