In the height of summer in western Fujian, the mountains are lush and green. At the "third tree" demonstration planting base in Hetian Town, Changting County, Longyan, young Phoebe bournei and Fokienia hodginsii seedlings stand tall, while black wattle saplings sway in the breeze, and understory medicinal herbs like Gangmei are taking root and climbing upward. What was once degraded red soil is now covered in fresh greenery, painting a picture of ecological prosperity with "long-term timber storage and short-term income gains."
As the first city in the province to launch the selection and cultivation of a forestry "third tree," Longyan has been anchoring its efforts this year on the goals of "improving quality, revitalizing industry, and benefiting the people." Facing stark challenges such as the ecological shortcomings of traditional Masson pine and China fir species, declining industrial returns, and mounting pressure from pine wilt disease control, the city is using the optimization of forest resource structures and the synergistic benefits of forests as "four reservoirs" as its starting point. From scientifically selecting tree species to pilot demonstrations, and from technical support systems to policy mechanism empowerment, Longyan is steadily exploring a new path for high-quality forestry development that balances ecological beauty, industrial prosperity, and rural wealth. So far, it has completed phased tasks including tree species selection, catalog compilation, and pilot implementation.
Steering the Direction of Forestry Upgrades
Forestry transformation starts with seedlings. The "third tree" is not a newly invented species but a "new force" selected from native broadleaf, precious timber, and high-economic-value trees, grounded in Longyan's local endowments while balancing ecological protection and industrial needs. It serves as a strategic lever for the city's forestry sector to break through development bottlenecks and achieve iterative upgrades. In January this year, Longyan officially kicked off the selection and cultivation of the "third tree." From the outset, the work prioritized grassroots input and industrial needs, soliciting tree species recommendations from seven county-level governments, forestry authorities, six provincial-level state-owned forest farms under municipal management, and key forestry processing enterprises, integrating frontline practical experience and industrial demands into the selection process.
To ensure "scientific suitability," Longyan established a closed-loop selection mechanism of "professional compilation, expert review, and multi-party validation." It proactively partnered with Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, with a professional team led by former President Professor Lan Sinren and researcher Ding Guochang providing full technical support. A plan review meeting was held in Changting County, bringing together provincial, municipal, and county forestry experts for collective assessment. The Longyan Forestry Bureau also developed the "Evaluation Index System for Selecting Advantageous Industrial Tree Species in Longyan City," inviting 15 experts to participate in scientific validation and quantitative comparison of candidate species based on dimensions such as biological characteristics, ecological adaptability, economic value, scalability potential, and market prospects.
After rigorous screening and selection, two targeted and instructive tree species recommendation catalogs were officially released: the "Catalog of Recommended Advantageous Industrial Tree Species for Longyan City" covers 14 species known for strong adaptability, high economic returns, and broad market prospects, suitable for large-scale local planting and industrial development, including species like Schima superba, Mytilaria laosensis, black wattle, Castanopsis hystrix, and Fokienia hodginsii. The "Catalog of Recommended High-Quality Ecological Tree Species for Longyan City" focuses on precious native broadleaf trees, emphasizing ecological functions such as water conservation, soil retention, carbon sequestration, and landscape enhancement, listing 16 species like liquidambar, Phoebe bournei, Michelia macclurei, and Vernicia montana, providing a clear "tree species checklist" for improving ecological public welfare forests, controlling soil erosion, and transforming forest stands.
Paving a New Path for Scientific Forest Cultivation
Selection goes beyond "choosing" and extends to "cultivating." Longyan has consistently pursued a dual approach of exploration, validation, and promotional implementation, embedding the "third tree" cultivation into key tasks such as pine wilt disease control, degraded forest restoration, and precision enhancement of forest quality, while aligning with the "co-prosperity forest farm" initiative. This encourages participation from state-owned forest farms, forestry operators, village collectives, and forest farmers, ensuring that good tree species truly take root on the mountains and yield results.
Since the start of 2026, the city has scaled up planting of broadleaf species such as Schima superba, Castanopsis hystrix, Mytilaria laosensis, and Michelia macclurei across approximately 50,000 mu, and has experimented with planting advantageous industrial species like Acacia mangium and black wattle on 12,000 mu. Forest structure continues to optimize, and comprehensive benefits are steadily being released. As a city-wide pilot, Hetian Town in Changting County, leveraging the UNDP-GEF degraded natural forest restoration project platform, has moved beyond traditional single-species afforestation, innovatively adopting a "long-short combination, layered value-added" silvicultural model. It cultivates long-cycle precious timber species such as Schima superba, Castanopsis hystrix, Phoebe bournei, and Fokienia hodginsii to stockpile high-value wood resources, while pairing them with short-cycle, fast-growing, high-economic-value species like black wattle and intercropping important medicinal herbs such as Gangmei, using short-term gains to sustain long-term returns. This approach preserves the ecological foundation while broadening income channels.
Building on innovative planting models, Changting County has also integrated "third tree" cultivation with the construction of forests as "four reservoirs," soil erosion control, collective forest tenure reform, and co-prosperity forest farm development, charting a distinctive "five-in-one" development path.
Unleashing the Driving Force for Forest Wealth Creation
The growth of a tree depends on the nourishment of sunlight and rain; the rise of an industry relies on systematic support. Longyan will guide all regions to accelerate cultivation efforts against the recommended tree species catalogs, establish a dynamic update mechanism for the catalogs, and regularly track and monitor tree species growth performance, market demand shifts, and industry development trends, adjusting and optimizing catalog contents as needed. Meanwhile, the city will set up an expert outreach service mechanism, providing ongoing technical training to grassroots forestry technicians and business operators, actively guiding diverse stakeholders such as state-owned forest farms, leading enterprises, village collectives, and forest farmers to participate deeply. This will promote the integration of "third tree" cultivation with forestry industry upgrades, village collective income growth, and forest farmer prosperity, continuously expanding the practical pathways for transforming "green waters and lush mountains" into "gold and silver mountains."
From the meticulous selection of a single tree to the quality transformation of an entire forest, and then to the tangible implementation of a new ecological prosperity path, Longyan's "third tree" cultivation effort is both an active exploration of the synergistic "four reservoirs" of forests and a vivid practice of the "two mountains" concept in the old revolutionary base area. As cultivation efforts continue to deepen, the vast forests of western Fujian will keep accumulating ecological momentum and unlocking economic value, injecting a steady stream of green energy into rural revitalization and high-quality ecological development.