Zhang Xiaojun, a professor in the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, raised a question during the 2014 Ecological Cultural Forum: would ethnic culture be in crisis if they lost their parent body drawn from village culture, as ethnic culture is mainly represented by village culture. Village culture is collapsing as the majority of young people in villages choose to move to the cities. Only the elderly and children are left behind. So village culture can not easily find people to keep it going.

One of the Eco Forum Global Annual Conference Guiyang 2014’s sub forum-2014 Ecological Cultural Forum (Photo/China Daily)

Tackling the crisis, Zhang gave a possible solution, namely, maintaining the ethnic village's traditional lifestyle and its traditional agricultural forms, while minimizing the differences regarding social welfare and resource allocation between urban and village households and entitlement to equal rights.

The possible solution has drawn lessons from those of Australia and France and it is an innovative but possible solution.

The ethnic groups' ecological awareness was also discussed during the forum. Gu Jiu, chairman of the Guizhou Provincial Arts and Literature Association, delivered a speech on the present and future of ethnic groups’ ecological awareness.

Gu said, looking at the current situation, that ethnic groups in Guizhou lack ecological awareness and the foreseeable future is not optimistic. But on the other hand, governments at all levels in Guizhou province have put ecological construction and green environment into their development plans, so the local people’s notions of ecology will be surely influenced.

The forum has provided a platform for communication between ethnic villages in Guizhou and the outside world.