Antu county, at the foot of the Changbai Mountain Range, may have an abundance of forests, but time is running out for some people who make a living off them because a year ago, on April 1, a ban on logging took effect and the area said good-bye to the old practice and the related jobs.

Agronomists offering advice on how to grow the medicinal lingzhi mushroom, for traditional Chinese medicine. [Photo/xinhua]

That ban followed nearly 15 years of depletion of local timber stocks and there are still no official statistics to indicate how much the ban affected employment, even though it's clear that many workers were affected when the authorities at the local Baihe forestry bureau decided to make the local economy more ecologically friendly.

Workers checking their black fungus at the Liangjiang forestry farm fungus base.[Photo/xinhua]

But some loggers tried to turn their losses into profits by planting lower growing cash crop on the local forestry farm, and, now, after a year of efforts, their experiment is paying off. A large number of loggers have turned to planting edible fungi, such as black fungus, and blueberries, and have managed to make a living from the mountains through a different approach.

Loggers no longer need to cut down trees, since they can now cultivate edible fungi at Hongshilin forestry farm. [Photo/xinhua] Workers tilling the land at a blueberry base at the Liangjiang forestry farm. [Photo/xinhua]