Tianzhushan Attends the 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks

From Sep. 19—22, 2014, the 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks was held in Stonehammer Global Geopark in Saint John city, Canada. More than 450 representatives from 30 countries attended.

The overall theme for the conference was centered around connecting. Geoparks are about connecting people to the Earth in a way that is meaningful to them and the conference was about connecting delegates with each other and our community. On the afternoon of Sep. 19th, Ms. Huang Wen, a representative from Tianzhushan Global Geopark gave an oral presentation titled “Tianzhushan Global Geopark strongly propels community development”, and introduced Tianzhushan to local primary school students, attracting wide attention.

With the great support of members of UNESCO, GGN and International Geoscience Union, members of GGN voted to support GGN to obtain legal character under UNESCO, which was an important milestone in the development history of Global Geoparks.

During the conference, Ms. Huang Wen actively communicated with representatives from other geoparks, especially Central Catalonia Global Geopark in Spain. Both geoparks agreed to strengthen cooperation on the conservation, management and proper utilization of geological resources, tourism promotion and sustainable development.

In recent years, Tianzhushan Global Geopark has rapidly developed its tourism economy, and the reception capacity of tourists has been constantly rising. The park administrative agency has strongly propelled community development through establishing co-construction, co-management and co-sharing system, skill training, authorized strength and executing planning, financial support, publicising and popularizing, holding competitions and other methods, obtaining obvious comprehensive benefits. There has newly increased employment opportunities and more than 50,000 tourism practitioners all over the county. Broadened channels of employment have promoted the farmland transfer and scale operation, and has spring up a batch of family farms and farmers’ specialized cooperatives, becoming one of “national key hundred strong counties of tea production”. Trichosanthes seed of Tianzhushan has won the national geographical indication products protection certification, accelerating the agricultural efficiency. The administrative agency has sponsored Tianzhushan prose, photography, painting and calligraphy, singing competition and other activities to greatly mobilize the culture creation enthusiasm of communities. Couples of cultural communities have successively set up. Cultural scenic spots have been built up and opened in sequence and nonphysical cultural heritages have been passed on and developed. Local government and park administrative agency have strongly propelled the construction of “tourism city, charming town, beautiful village and happy homeland”, not only improving residents’ living condition, but also attracting more tourists to check in and take a vacation. Residents have further improved their awareness of environment protection, and have firmly established green and low-carbon development concept, farmers have paid high attention to develop eco-friendly industry, and private invested scenic spots have emerged in large numbers, expediting the ecological cultural construction.