Decades of replanting forests on revered peak hides scars of war

The lush forests that carpet Taishan Mountain in Shandong province are taken for granted by most visitors to one of China's five most sacred peaks.

However, these verdant slopes were once near barren, caught between the crosshairs of violent struggle.

At the Hongmen entrance of Taishan stands a statue of a slender man surrounded by a group carrying hoes and buckets of water. This monument commemorates the efforts to reforest Taishan during the 1950s and 1960s. The man in the center is Zhang Yaonan, the fifth director of the Taishan Forest Farm, who dedicated his life to this cause.

The inscription reveals that despite being historically forested, Taishan had just 200 hectares of trees left by 1949 due to wartime destruction.

Reforestation initiatives began in 1948, and carried on through the 1950s, with farm workers and locals persevering through harsh conditions to expand the tree coverage to 12,000 hectares.

"Workers lived in stone huts and drank from mountain springs," reads the monument's inscription. For many years, teams braved landslides and storms to plant millions of pines, many of which now stand towering at heights of 30 meters.

Today, Taishan boasts an impressive 95.8 percent forest coverage rate, providing a habitat for nearly 4,500 species of flora and fauna.

Bird diversity has surged dramatically, with the number of recorded species increasing from 148 in 1995 to 374.

"Taishan has achieved a remarkable transformation from barrenness to lush greenery, and the efforts in ecological conservation continue," said Shen Weixing, director of the heritage protection department of the Taishan Mountain Scenic Area Administrative Committee.

The scenic area has the goal of nurturing healthy forests, with a focus on preserving ancient trees and strengthening biodiversity monitoring and research.

Taishan Forest Farm has evolved into an ecological public welfare institution, integrating production, teaching and field practice, scientific research, technology demonstration and forest tourism into a comprehensive model.