Hug the trees

The Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden is also a major tourist attraction in Xishuangbanna. [Photos Provided To China Daily]

Advanced training course

Williams and Wang Ximin are two lecturers of "advanced nature education research training course" initiated by the Chinese Union of Botanical Gardens and held annually in XTBG since 2013. The union was officially launched in June 2013, with its secretariat based in XTBG and Professor Chen Jin as the present chairman.

The two-week training was targeted at people who are involved in nature education from botanical gardens, NGOs and universities, Chen says. "A session will have about 30 participants," he says. "We invite nature education experts from all over the world to teach them techniques to deliver innovative nature education and ways to design and evaluate nature education programs."

In August, he says, the third session of the training will invite experts from Mongabay.com, one of the world's most popular environmental science and conservation news sites, to give lectures on nature education.

"Through efficient environment education to build up a long-term partnership with local communities, we can help these communities' ecological restoration," Chen says. "By focusing on conservation, we could develop XTBG into a conservation leader in the whole (Asian tropical) region and a model for the world's new botanical gardens."