During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County has delivered an impressive performance, leveraging the realization of ecological product value as a breakthrough and driven by industrial upgrading and improvement of people’s livelihood. Currently, the total GEP of the county has reached 42.9 billion yuan, and the renovation of old residential areas has benefited 5,983 households, painting a new picture of coordinated development of ecology, industry, and people’s livelihood.
In 2025, Jingzhou held a press conference on the results of gross ecosystem product (GEP) accounting. According to the accounting and expert review, the total value of ecological products in the county in 2023 was 42.9 billion yuan, of which regulating services accounted for 83.44%, demonstrating outstanding ecological regulating capacity. Jingzhou has continuously explored and innovated in the path of realizing the value of ecological products. In July this year, it completed the province’s first transaction of ecological product value in a specific geographical unit, amounting to 79.6 million yuan, and implemented the first VEP loan of 11 million yuan, setting a model for the marketization transformation of ecological resources.
During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, Jingzhou innovated the “three-layer stripping and multi-right overlapping” mechanism, stated Li Songqing, director of the Ecological Product Value Realization Affairs Center of Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County. On the basis of maintaining the ownership and contracting rights of forest land unchanged, it separately established the rights to operate above, on, and below the ground, issued the first ecological product management right certificate in the province, and gave ecological resources a “property right ID card”.
In 2022, Jingzhou took the lead in exploring the reform of “separation of three rights” in forest land, separating the management right from the ownership and use right, and issuing the first batch of “Forest Land Management Right Certificates” nationwide. This laid a solid foundation for the in-depth development and efficient utilization of ecological resources, and also provided strong support for the effective transformation of ecological product value.
Zhou Fan, deputy director of the Real Estate Registration Center of Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County, introduced that relying on its unique forest land resources, Jingzhou has taken the four key issues of “difficulty in measurement, difficulty in trading, difficulty in cashing out, and difficulty in mortgage” of ecological products as the core breakthrough point. It has innovatively explored a “three-layer stripping” and “multi-right overlay” registration model for forest land management rights, clearly dividing the ownership of forest land and truly “activating” the value of management rights.
Currently, Jingzhou has completed over 500 registrations of management right mortgages, facilitated more than 1,200 collective forest right transactions, completed the province’s first transaction for the value transformation of water and soil conservation ecological products, and issued the first ecological asset loan based on water area management rights. From January to August this year, the county issued ecological loans such as “Bamboo Loans” and “Tuckahoe Loans” worth 230 million yuan, effectively catalyzing the transformation of ecological value through green finance.
“After the confirmation and registration of ecological product ownership, we have gained confidence and can develop with peace of mind,” said Xu Chaodong, deputy general manager of Hunan Butian Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., “And banks can also provide us with credit loans based on our management rights certificate. Our planting base has expanded from the original 2,000 mu to the current 10,000 mu.”
At the Mayuan Chinese Herbal Medicine Base in Sanhe Village, Quyang Town, workers are bending over to dig up soil, one after another, uncovering jade bamboo wrapped in mud. The atmosphere of a bountiful harvest is palpable. This 10,000-mu ecological base, built by Butian Health Industry Group, continues to expand the “Chinese Herbal Medicine+” model, achieving “double harvests from one plot of land”. Shi Meng, deputy general manager of Hunan Butian Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., said, “The ‘three-layer stripping and multi-right stacking’ mechanism introduced by Jingzhou is crucial. With ‘property rights identity cards’ for ecological products, ecological resources have truly become sustainable ‘green assets’.”
In the Fuling Technology Industrial Park, Guoling Technology Co., Ltd. is engaged in the fine processing of tuckahoe, and healthy food is shipped across the country. Meanwhile, 18 kilometers away in the Bamboo Technology Industrial Park, workers at Hunan Linggao New Material Co., Ltd. are intently tuning their new production line. These advanced equipment, which are about to be fully operational, will enable the transformation of bamboo stalks into something magnificent, showcasing strong competitiveness in the new race of “replacing plastic with bamboo”.
Over the past five years, the Jingzhou Industrial Development Zone has leveraged its local resource advantages to fully promote the development of characteristic industries, said Hou Jiancheng, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Management Committee of the Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County Industrial Development Zone. A total of 35 major industrial projects have been introduced, including 21 projects with an investment of over 200 million yuan and 7 enterprises among the top 500 in three categories. By 2025, there will be 57 large-scale industrial enterprises in the park. It is expected that the total income of technology, industry, and trade in the park will reach 11 billion yuan, an increase of 175% compared to 2020.
In the Yixi River, the water is clear and green, and the willows by the river have gradually turned from verdant green to golden yellow. The renovated Hejie Community has become a popular leisure destination for residents. “After the renovation of the old residential area, this place has taken on a whole new look, said Yang Hongchen, a resident of Hejie Community in Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County, “People can take a walk on the plank road, and even the elderly can come here to dance in the square. It provides a good place for my daily leisure time.”
Over the past five years, Jingzhou has renovated 100 old residential areas, covering an area of 544,000 square meters, benefiting 5,983 households. From activating green development momentum through ecological innovation, creating characteristic economic clusters through industrial upgrading, to improving people’s livelihood and enhancing the happiness index of the masses, Jingzhou is moving forward with firm steps on the path of coordinated development in ecology, industry, and people’s livelihood.
(Translated by Tian Xia)