Green Guard Xiao Chuanhua: Perseverance in Mission

Xiao Chuanhua is very modest. When we congratulated him on being awarded the “Green Guard” title, he said very calmly: “This title was awarded to honor and encourage all the rangers, and the work done by each generation of rangers has been the same. Therefore, this honor should belong to all the rangers of the Shennongjia National Park.”

Indeed, each ranger of the Shennongjia National Park has their own extraordinary experience, and each is worthy of people’s respect.

Since he started working, Xiao Chuanhua has never asked for annual leave. Due to the heavy responsibility and his busy schedule, he devoted all his energy to work and paid scant attention to his family and children. While enduring the pain of separation, his wife has to juggle work with family.

For 23 years, Xiao Chuanhua has been shuttling between Shennongding, which is at the highest altitude, and Dongxi, the most remote place. From 2001 to 2011, Xiao Chuanhua worked at the Dongxi Management Office (now the Dongxi Management and Conservation Center). During the decade, like a recluse, he buried himself in the forest, companion to the trees and gurgling streams, cut off from his friends, and paid rare visits to his family. On the night of May 18, 2003, Xiao Chuanhua and his colleagues were sleeping in tents used for remote patrols when he heard that his daughter had a sudden attack of acute appendicitis and had been rushed to hospital overnight for surgery. His wife was taking care of her daughter alone and didn’t close her eyes throughout the night. Looking dishevelled, he rushed to the hospital. Despite tears in her eyes, his wife did not complain. Instead, she brushed the pine needles and weeds off Xiao Chuanhua’s shoulders.

Thinking of the past, the couple are content with what they have: their child has gone to college; although they live in a dormitory, at least they’re not separated.

Xiao Chuanhua is already over 50 years old, but he more cherishes and loves his job as a forest ranger. Why? We found the answer in one of his reports: “General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the National Conference of Ecological Environment Protection that ‘environment is part of people’s livelihood; green mountains are tantamount to beauty, and blue sky brings happiness, so we should cherish the ecological environment as we cherish our eyes and treat it as we treat life.’ As a watchman and guardian of the national park, I always bear in mind the General Secretary’s earnest instructions, and ecological environment protection is high on my list of priorities…”

Later we learned that Xiao Chuanhua had better career choices, but he had given up. He chose with determination to stay in the deep mountains, the most difficult place. He said: “I have stayed here for a lifetime. I have developed an intimate relationship with this mountain, so I can’t sever the relationship.”

Achievements belong to the past, and honor is an incentive. Xiao Chuanhua has his own definition of “Green Guard”, that is, one should always think of the national park, consciously follow their superiors’ instructions about ecological environmental protection, and actively guard the frontier in practice.

He said: “The Party committee has sketched a broad and beautiful painting of the Shennongjia National Park, which will be beautified by us. To beautify this painting, each brush should be filled with brilliant colors. In the future, I am willing to devote my time and energy to my work, making contributions to our capacity building and to creating an internationally renowned, domestically first-rate national park!”

Zhao Baoshan said that the five rangers of their center have to walk about 2,500 kilometers a year, spend more than 10 days a month in the wildness on foot, and carry tents and solid food on remote patrols, braving the wind and dew. Since Xiao Chuanhua is good at heightening his team’s sense of cohesion and treats the center as his home, he always takes care of each team member like a parent and guards the forest around them. There are not only primitive forest, waterfalls, and streams, but also poisonous snakes and beasts in Shennongding area. They trudged through the crisscrossing mountains and dense forests on foot, waded through the chilling river, and brushed off the leeches and pests on their legs. They kept moving on, going out early and coming back at dusk.

In Xiao Chuanhua’s view, he should persevere with his patrol task. He said that the purpose of patrols is not simply to walk a long distance, but to use your eyes to find out problems, and only by thinking hard, learning effectively, and putting your ideas into practice can you continuously improve the quality of patrols. Through short, remote, inspecting, joint, and linked patrols, the conservation center has established a patrol network connecting individuals and teams. As you can carry out aerial monitoring with drones, and use infrared cameras and electronic fence to take pictures in the forest, and field patrol by rangers, a three-dimensional network has been formed. Through forest management and protection and fire prevention, we can broaden our experience and achieve good results.

Fire protection is the top priority of the conservation center. To warn himself and others, Xiao Chuanhua always keeps five points in mind: remember to study how to protect forests and prevent fires at meetings; remember the responsibility for fire control and forest protection when assigning tasks; remember to observe fire precautions when running checks; remember to supervise fire prevention when going to the scenic area; remember to remind his colleagues about fire prevention before going out.

Xiao Chuanhua has been working hard in the past 20 years and has won several honors, such as “Model Worker”, “Wildlife Protection Award”, “Advanced Worker”, and “Green Guard”. He is indeed a loyal guardian who rises from the Shennong Peak, the roof of central China.