Teacher Youzi

““The purpose of Shanhe Garden is to bring rare alpine plants back into the community, so endangered life can become visible again.”

Teacher Youzi has worked in biodiversity conservation in northwestern Yunnan for thirteen years, across alpine plants, birds, mammals, and community-based ecological protection. His concern is not only the preservation of endangered species, but also the changing relationship between people and nature.

In Shitou Township, many families have depended on the mountains for generations. Bamboo shoots, matsutake mushrooms, medicinal plants, and other forest products have been important sources of household income. As younger people leave the village, however, everyday relationships with the forest can also weaken.

For Teacher Youzi, conservation cannot simply turn mountains into protected spaces defined by prohibition. It should also help the people who live there recognize the value and meaning of their own landscape.

This is why he has brought nature education into the community, taking children to observe plants and learn about birds so that younger generations can rebuild relationships with their home mountains. Shanhe Garden is another expression of this idea: bringing rare alpine plants back into the community so endangered life can become visible again.

“The purpose of Shanhe Garden is to bring rare alpine plants back into the community, so endangered life can become visible again.”

In his view, protecting biodiversity ultimately means protecting relationships of coexistence between humans and the more-than-human world. The Shanhe Garden therefore becomes more than a plant-conservation site. It is also an attempt to ask how a village undergoing social change might rediscover value in its own landscape—and imagine futures rooted not in abandoning tradition, but in reworking relationships between people and nature.