Tian Feng: China’s Ecotourism Expert

Ecotourism is a hot topic globally, but like any “green” trend, the ecotourism label can be more of a marketing scheme than an indicator of sustainability. In China, ecotourism is even more difficult to define. The term implies no particular environmental awareness. It can include rustic backpacking and closely-managed mass tourism complete with buses and paved roads. It may incorporate cultural education, the opportunity to buy local crafts, or merely a view of a lake.

Claiming the eco-tourism mantle in China is as simple as putting a sign up. There are no regulations or even a firm definition of what the term means.

The Road to Ecotourism

In my quest to better understand Chinese ecotourism, I met with Tian Feng, a globally respected ecotourism expert in Western China, at a coffee shop in Chengdu. Mr. Tian consults for the ecotourism branch of Conservation International (CI), a global NGO focused on preserving biodiversity, and is developing a unique ecotourism project in Sichuan Province. A quiet man with narrow, intelligent features and always-moving hands, it’s hard to imagine that he is an international presence, requested to speak at forums all over the world.

Mr. Tian has not always been an ecotourism guru. He started his career as a documentary film producer for a national TV station where, for three years, he directed documentaries about Chinese culture. The job took him all over China and around the world. The more he traveled, the more distressed he became that some of China’s most beautiful natural places were being ruined by poor environmental management and tourism planning.

“The Chinese are linked with their country’s long culture,” he says, “and this culture, in turn, cannot be separated from the land and nature.” He feels the reason China’s environment is in such a sorry state is precisely because Chinese people’s link to nature has been severed. This is due, in part, to the country’s rapid urbanization—today 737 million Chinese live in urban centers and many of them are disconnected from local products.

“People’s happiness is now measured in material benchmarks like money, cars and big houses,” Mr. Tian vaguely gestures at couples in the coffee shop where we sit. “In order to preserve China, it’s important to re-link nature with everyday life.” It’s Tian’s desire to encourage people to reassess what brings them true happiness, to find satisfaction in more natural, sustainable enjoyments.

Mr. Tian started by organizing small group trips to introduce his friends to little-known places, often located in remote parts of China. He also began to write about nature for various Chinese magazines, hoping to pique the interest of city-dwellers cut off from the natural world. He later quit his filmmaking job, and joined the CI tourism development team, convinced that he could make a difference.

According to Mr. Tian, demand for ecotourism (see sidebar for his definition) is growing in China. While tourist agencies are slow to change, he has found that most young Chinese don’t want to join generic mass tours. “Before, tourism was all about eating in hotels and traveling by bus. Now, Chinese tourists want something special.” He sighs. “So there is a potential market, but people still don’t have many options.”

Capitalism drives the Conservation Bandwagon

It will take more than environmental appreciation to change Chinese tourism practices. Due to China’s staggering population and unceasing drive for economic development, many natural sites see huge volumes of visitors but are not carefully preserved or managed. “The worth of nature raises its price,” says Mr. Tian, laughing. “And businessmen start asking themselves ‘How do I make money from nature? How do I get more people in?’”

This is partially the fault of local and municipal governments who measure success by economic growth alone. National targets for ecological and economic sustainability are generally ignored. Western China, where Mr. Tian works, is very poor compared to the glimmering east coast, but it is rich in natural resources. So in order to stimulate the economy, people in the west pick a beautiful natural area and start selling tickets. “Big hotels and parking lots are constructed,” Mr. Tian says. “These companies care little about nature and culture.” This manner of development often destroys the very natural resources that the business relies on. Mr. Tian snorts at the irony. “In order to preserve valuable natural resources,” he continues, “it’s important to change the ideas of both the business owner and the government.”

Unlike many environmental NGO representatives, Mr. Tian believes that business and environmental interests are both vital in the tourism development process. Right now, however, environmental NGOs and organizations charged with stimulating economic development often have competing agendas when it comes to tourism. International environmental NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy try to avoid working with businesses, because they are worried about investing money in a Chinese business venture (as opposed to a solely conservation venture).

These sites fail to create successful ecotourism models because NGOs forget basic economic principles, says Mr. Tian. As a result, sites are rarely able to sustain themselves financially. The lack of collaboration between environmental NGOs and businesses creates a fragmented development process, with institutions working in separate places and often against each other. “Tourism is a business, business is money, and money is driven by the market and economic principles,” Mr. Tian says. To him, sustainable tourism can only come about if environmental and economic organs work together.

Care about who profits

There are no ecotourism sites in China that live up to Mr. Tian’s criteria—yet. Even Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve in northern Sichuan, lauded throughout the country as a prime example of ecotourism, fails in Mr. Tian’s assessment. He concedes that the reserve is “exceptionally managed for mass tourism purposes,” with entrance numbers closely monitored and transport inside limited to the reserve’s buses. However, he points out that when this park was developed in the late 1990s, local industry did not directly benefit from the influx of tourists. In fact, many residents in the reserve boundaries were kicked out and pushed aside to make room for tourism companies and hotel chains.

Mr. Tian hopes the ecotourism sites he’s developing will live up to his own high standards, but it may be years before his vision is realized. “It will be a long process to get everything sorted out,” he says, and looks at his hands. “We have three testing areas in Sichuan province, and have just persuaded the local government to sign a contract saying they will not be involved in the development process. This gives the local population the right to develop their own community.” This is unique in China, and I voice my surprise, wondering out loud how a small community will be able to manage things by themselves. “We are highly involved in giving the locals specialized training to patrol and monitor their land,” he answers, smiling. “When the provincial government tried to manage the land, it couldn’t keep control over it from so far away. Training locals is highly effective and cheap!” CI trains the locals and provides start-up money and materials, but in the end they will have little control over the reserve’s future. When CI leaves, the site will be the sole responsibility of local residents.

Putting development in the hands of locals is important to Mr. Tian because the key point of these testing sites “is using natural resources right”—and that means making sure the local population directly profits. The conversation returns to Mr. Tian’s original epiphany: “If people are connected to their environment and rely on it for income, they are more likely to care for it, not exploit it. It’s easy for NGOs and experts to have ideas, but in the end, the weight of responsibility lies on the people who care about their nature and culture.”

The road to reach a truly sustainable ecotourism model in China looks like a long one. At the end of the interview, I ask Tian Feng my last, deceptively simple question. Is there a future for ecotourism in China? Mr. Tian Feng, who has devoted his life to this cause, pauses for a moment. “There is a future for it here… sometime,” he says quietly, and seems to search for the answer in his coffee dregs.

Monica Liau has lived in China for two years, where she has been a Fulbright Scholar researching ecotourism. Based in both Chengdu and Shanghai, she’s a freelance writer who covers business trends, the urban pulse, mysterious food and kooky happenings. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with concentrations in Environmental Management, Urban Planning and Chinese.