Decades of replanting forests on revered peak hides scars of war

The lush forests that carpet Taishan Mountain in Shandong province are taken for granted by most visitors to one of China's five most sacred peaks.

However, these verdant slopes were once near barren, caught between the crosshairs of violent struggle.

At the Hongmen entrance of Taishan stands a statue of a slender man surrounded by a group carrying hoes and buckets of water. This monument commemorates the efforts to reforest Taishan during the 1950s and 1960s. The man in the center is Zhang Yaonan, the fifth director of the Taishan Forest Farm, who dedicated his life to this cause.