Discovering a life of harmony
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More familiar organic farms and supermarkets have also taken root. The first organic supermarket in Beijing, Lohao City, for example, has quickly expanded to 18 stores in five cities in just three years.
According to Yu Chongzheng, founder of Lohao City, in the past couple of years China has been making the transition from the world's factory to the world's marketplace. The competition by luxury brands to enter China shows that people are willing to pay more for quality.
According to Yu, the battle now is for consumer trust, especially in the organic food industry where running a truly organic production line is a lifelong commitment.
However, with a plethora of organic certifications and uncertainty over food safety standards overall, it's hard to guarantee authenticity of organic produce that ends up at city supermarkets.
Part of the problem is the increasing decoupling of the city from the countryside, making it hard to establish trust with consumers who are most interested in the product.
While support for sustainable living tends to start with wealthy urban white collars, one Chinese NGO called Global Village of Beijing has recognized that real change is often more possible from the countryside.
Founder and activist Sheri Liao started her career as a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. According to Liao, the Chinese countryside with its deep memories of older agricultural practices has the most potential for complete change.
"Actually organic farming and green living doesn't need a great deal of education. The countryside was originally very close to the earth and they still have ecological knowledge - but they're giving it up to copy the city. We want to stop that at the roots," says Liao who was also the environmental adviser to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Their flagship project, the Life of Harmony (LOHO) Community of Daping Village in Sichuan Province, was started last year just after the earthquake in May. Liao chose a village that was devastated by the quake as it represented a unique opportunity to reconstruct its physical and socio-economic structure from scratch.
Set in beautiful mountain scenery, Daping's reconstruction involves six aspects including sustainable and quake-resistant rebuilding using a mix of traditional and modern techniques, new green streams of income from organic farming, handicrafts and eco-tourism, plus a center for TCM treatment and illness prevention.
Liao is also building an education center as part of the eco-tourism project that teaches visitors about LOHAS.
In a rare economic model, the NGO links the village to a market for healthy foods in neighboring cities. The small scale of production and proximity to the food source establishes trust in the market.
The NGO is also fully invested in the village with a 15-year contract and 51-percent stake in its economic success. Finally, it has a unique governance model made up of an association of the villagers, the NGO and local government so that once set up, its economic model can be sustainable.
"With this project I want to show what is possible, and so far these changes have been more easily accepted in the countryside," says Liao.
However, the eco-tourism project is in the very early stages and overall success remains to be seen. The project is unfolding against a backdrop of rapidly increasing mass tourism in China that puts pressure on national heritage sites all over the country.
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