Construction for the future

When Liu Hongbao, head of the Guangdong Foshan aid group, first visited Shuimo Town in Wenchuan, it was the heavy pollution – not the destructive debris from the quake – that shocked him.

A remote western town, Shuimo used to be an industrial base, having 63 high energy-consuming and heavy polluting enterprises. Planning for the town's future, Liu, who holds a doctorate and is an expert on physics and material sciences, and his aid group were not in a hurry to fix the holes, but started a careful investigation within the region. Three months later, the group concluded that the town needed to dig out its Tibetan and Qiang ethnic cultural features and upgrade its industry to avoid facing serious pollution problems later on. They removed 58 heavy polluting enterprises from the town and created an eco-tourism economy drawing on Shuimo's ethnic cultural flavor.

According to the construction plan, the new Shuimo Town will function as a resort for tourism, education, special agriculture and living. The newly-established blocks with special ethnic and cultural features attracted nearly 10,000 domestic and overseas visitors during the Chinese Lunar New Year in February 2011, creating a great tourism boom in the region. The new environment also drew two universities to establish campuses there. Some 10,000 university faculty and students became new residents of the town, creating more job opportunities for local denizens.