Ecological conservation pays green dividends

Lin Hong once watched her parents come home from the mushroom sheds with smoke-stained clothes and exhausted eyes. Today, she pours tea for guests who gaze through floor-to-ceiling windows at a burbling creek and lush mountains in the distance.

"My family used to cut trees and burn spent mushroom logs. The smoke was everywhere," said Lin, who is in her 40s, as she adjusted a cushion in her boutique guesthouse in Chongtou village, at the heart of the Yunhe rice terraces. "Now our guests come to see the greenery," she said.

Lin's shift from mushroom farmer's daughter to innkeeper is a shorthand for the transformation of Chongtou township, where the terraces cascade down hillsides that were once denuded for fuel.