Yangpo LifeBubble Village

Background

The Yangpo (pronounced Youngpore) LifeBubble village is an exciting project in the South West of Henan Province, China. Here a social enterprise team from Singapore, Australia and China are implementing a truly sustainable small community on a leased property that will support a core team of about 20–30 people who will cater for the needs of about 20 retreat guests who will stay for up to a month at a time in the LifeBubble accommodation that will be constructed on the property. The property is about 1 km² of steep south facing land, mostly covered with deciduous forest but with about 6 Ha terraced horticultural land and some rammed earth and traditional tiled houses. All but 1 of about 7 houses on the land have been abandoned and are in various states of dilapidation. Six and a half hectares of land adjacent to these houses have been recently cultivated. Historically there was about 2 or 3 times this much land terraced and cultivated.

Forest Restoration

It is the intention to manage the property so that the currently heavily degraded forest is protected from poaching, restored and enriched to near its former diversity over time. It is hoped that this work will improve the water quality in the catchments and create more even stream flow as the soil improves to support more stable groundwater hydrology typical of a more heavily forested catchment.

Up until now, local Shitaki growers have been cutting the young trees into 1200 mm lengths when they get to about 100 – 300 mm diameter to inoculate with mushroom mycelium and stack in shady areas. Although this method if cultivation has been officially discouraged it still continues to provide sufficient financial incentive for local farmers to risk prosecution for cutting the forest to continue this traditional method of cultivating these high-value grommet mushrooms. An important strategy to stop this practice will be to have the area occupied and the forest regularly patrolled to protect it.

Because of the practice of cutting the forest so frequently for mushroom logs, there is a lot of coppicing from cut stumps and the result is a dense low growing coppice forest with very few large trees left. Ideally, the forest needs thinning and enriching to restore it to the diversity of the surrounding inaccessible areas. To achieve this, given the understandable sensitivity around past deforestation, may require the engagement of a university forestry department with a supportive/philosophically aligned forester with the experience needed to assist with development and implementation of a Yangpo forest biodiversity management plan.

Even though the forest is degraded there are still many areas with natural beauty. Ferny waterfall gullies, azalea and orchid studded ridges and a couple of sites suitable for dams that will be attractive features for nature trails on the property that could weave in and out of diverse horticultural areas and traverse to a nearby mountain with spectacular views, steep cliffs where peregrine falcons nest and Buddhist and Taoist shrines attract local worshipers. This relatively undisturbed area rising to 1060m is just to the north of the highest peaks of the Yangpo property, which are about 930m above sea level.

During a site visit in April 2014 no evidence of larger animals was observed however there were a few species of lizard/skinks and a snake. Many bird species have been observed and insects are abundant. Some of the existing biodiversity is recorded on a Yangpo video April 2014 from this site visit.