Recently, Xitou Village in Longquan City was selected as one of the world’s “Best Tourism Villages”. Thanks to the “Thousand and Ten Thousand Project” and the construction of the most beautiful core area of the “Picturesque Zhejiang” Grand Garden, Xitou Village has transformed from a little-known remote mountain village into a globally recognized the “Best Tourism Village”.

Gazing brings the scenery to life, wandering immerses one in the canvas, and residing kindles emotions. Today’s Lishui has revealed the unique charm of the “Picturesque Zhejiang” grand garden’s most beautiful core area.

Adhering to the functional positioning of the “Picturesque Zhejiang” grand garden’s most beautiful core area, Lishui integrates mountains, fields, and cultural elements into urban planning, meticulously crafting the “Lishui Mountain Residence Map”, and implementing a special action for the quality improvement of the beautiful grand garden across the entire region.

Focusing on the quality improvement of the beautiful grand garden is a systematic response at the institutional and mechanism level to the new question of how to seek harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. In April of this year, Lishui City formulated the “Lishui City Beautiful Grand Garden Quality Improvement Special Action Plan”, focusing on the shortcomings in the “three areas” of the periphery of scenic spots and passages, around transportation arteries, and in the urban-rural fringe areas, as well as the upgrading of infrastructure. Following the principles of “clean, tidy, natural, and scenic” the city carries out work to improve the quality of the beautiful grand garden, aiming to build a high-level “Picturesque Zhejiang” grand garden’s most beautiful core area, create an upgraded version of the “Thousand and Ten Thousand Project”, and set a model for ecological civilization construction in the new era.

A garden city that blends mountains and waters, suitable for living, working, and tourism, is rapidly taking shape.

By the end of October this year, significant progress has been made in the rectification and enhancement of key areas. Out of 190 quality improvement measures listed on the “Three Lists”—including the “power list” which defines what the government should do, the “responsibility list” which outlines the government’s obligations, and the “negative list” which specifies what enterprises should not do—175 have been completed. Over 20,000 problem sites have been rectified, leading to a noticeable improvement in environmental quality. The construction of beautiful carriers is accelerating, with 100 new garden villages and 197 garden courtyards created, focusing on developing 10 garden-style demonstration belts and 9 beautiful transportation routes. A total of 163 signature projects for the beautiful garden city have completed an investment of 4.113 billion yuan, achieving 133.54% of the annual planned investment, creating a vivid scene of bright spots, scenic lines, and blooming surfaces.

Recently, the preliminary design for the protection and restoration project of the Nanming Lake, part of the Yangtze River Economic Belt Ou River mainstream (city level) section basin, was approved by the city’s Development and Reform Commission. The project covers about 10.4 kilometers of river length and will not only focus on aquatic ecological restoration and waterfront corridor construction but also meet the leisure and entertainment needs of citizens. Upon completion, it will further enhance the ecological environment quality of Nanming Lake waters, promote the construction of a water-based ecological civilization, and contribute to the creation of a harmonious coexistence between humans and nature in the Lishui Mountain Residence Map.

Lishui is an important ecological barrier in the East China region and the ecological "ecological core" of the Yangtze River Delta. In recent years, our city has conducted a series of pioneering explorations and practices in the field of ecological civilization construction. We have taken the construction of a national biodiversity conservation leading area as a symbolic project to promote the beautiful transformation of the ecological environment. We have completed the baseline survey of biodiversity, built a landscape garden city, and developed poetic living villages... From “Green Lishui” to “Ecological Lishui” and then to “Beautiful Lishui”, Lishui’s ecological environment quality continues to lead. Currently, the city’s air and water environmental quality ranks at the forefront nationwide. The ecological environment status index has been leading in Zhejiang for 20 consecutive years. A total of 27 new species have been discovered globally, and a biodiversity intelligent monitoring system covering the entire city has been established. Both the public satisfaction with the ecological environment and the biodiversity friendliness index rank first in the province.

In 2021, starting from the concept of systematic protection and restoration of mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes, and grasslands, Lishui City planned an integrated protection and restoration project for the Ou river source area, with a total investment of 5.5 billion yuan, of which 4.8 billion yuan has been completed. The project was selected as one of the United Nations' first batch of top ten “Ecological Restoration Decade Flagship Projects”. In addition, Lishui City has systematically advanced the systematic governance of the Ou River basin and has built over 5,000 kilometers of high-quality garden greenways along the Ou River. An ecologically beautiful and harmonious natural garden is gradually taking shape.

Now, Lishui has achieved the status of a provincial garden demonstration county across the entire region, has been encouraged by the State Council’s ecological civilization supervision, and Baishanzhu has successfully been included in the second batch of candidate sequences for national park establishment. It has also created 2 national 5A-level tourist attractions and 8 provincial garden dazzling pearls. A “quality garden city” that blends poetic landscapes with beautiful urban and rural areas is moving from vision to reality.