“There are some hundred-year-old osmanthus trees and phoebe trees, and one red maple tree which can’t be hold by three adults available on both sides of the bridge. More than 300 yuan has been placed on numbering, listing and building fences for the red maple tree. Besides that, special technician was employed to protect the tree.” said Wang Daosheng- Village Secretary of Sanhe village, Chenzhou city.

It was introduced by Li Fuliang- Director of Beihu District Forestry Bureau that there are hundreds of ancient and rare trees scattered in Sanhe village, Longnv landscape, Wanhuayan landscape, and other places of Beihu district. Beautiful legends and wonderful stories were capable to be learned from these ancient trees. According to the data, 4339 ancient and rare tress were registered in Beihu district. Taking 200 yuan protection fund for each tree into consideration, more than one million yuan would be placed on the management and protection issues of these trees.

In recent years, because of the unspecified responsibility system, insufficient capital and extensive management, and the ice disaster of 2008, many ancient and rare trees were damaged in Beihu district. In order to enhance the management, “the comments on further protection of ancient and rare trees” (short for “the comments”) was released by Beihu district. As required by “the comments” that all the ancient and rare trees should be provided with management and protection funds for filing, listing, etc. and dispatched with responsible people to carry out daily protection issues. With such kind of special “pension”, the ancient and rare trees were granted with healthier and safer living condition.

It was learned that a resource censor action on ancient and rare trees would be carried out in Beihu district every five year to create the files of the trees. An online query platform would be established to provide more ways for citizens to learn more information of the trees. At the meantime, a protection list of the trees would be released to the public. Furthermore, behaviors to destroy the ancient and rare trees would be punished strictly. If the responsible person failed to protect the trees well, he/she would be held accountable.

Generally speaking, ancient tree refers to the tree aged over one hundred years, and rare tree refers to the rare ones with historical, memorable and scientific value.