SONG Youfa, a local farmer on Chongming Island, is extremely busy even when it’s not harvest season.

His three-storey house is a destination for tourists from Shanghai and neighbouring cities. Tourists come all the way to his house for the scenery and prepared dishes with country flavour.

Song takes pride in his experience of hosting President Hu Jintao on July 27.

Song is not the only resident of Qianwei village to receive tourists. Most of the villagers provide accommodation and food for travellers.

A group of three-storey houses overlook a river with reeds swaying in the breeze and white egrets flying over wetlands. To protect the environment, all the villagers built their houses in a compact area.

Featuring wetlands scenery, unique customs and dishes, the village developed an eco-tour called “Happy Farmers?Families?in 1999 and has developed 10 tourists zones.

Not far from the dense residential area is an agriculture park filled with the fragrance of lavender and peppermint grown in greenhouses. A landfill gas generator disposes of human and poultry waste. The by-products are used to fertilize farm fields and the gas is used for heat.

Instead of building factories which cause pollution, the whole village pins its development on tourism and an ecological agriculture while attaching much importance to preserving the natural scenery and environment.

Shanghai’s decision to fully develop the isolated island will bring more opportunities to Qianwei and other villages like his.

“Chongming Island will be developed into an ecological island and will be a centre for holiday travel, international organizations and ecological agriculture,?said Sun Lei, a vice-governor of Chongming County.

As the world’s biggest river mouth alluvial island and the third largest island in China, Chongming Island is located where the Yangtze River flows into the sea. It overlooks Baoshan District and Pudong New Area of Shanghai across the Huangpu River in the south, linking with the bellowing Yangtze River in the west and a rapidly developing Jiangsu Province by the river in the north.

“Our long-term goal is to create an important strategic spot for the sustainable development of Shanghai in the 21st century, and develop important industrial, recreational and tourism bases, as well as an ecological demonstration zone,?said Sun.

The focus will expand to other fields such as free trade, export and processing industries, environmentally friendly agriculture and tourism on the island.

Ambitious blueprint

The general development plan for Chongming Island draws a blueprint for the next two decades.

Under the plan, Chongming will incorporate tourism, ecology, scientific and technological research by the year 2020.

It is a key strategic step for Shanghai’s development in the new century following its successful development of Pudong district in the 1990s.

The plan divides Chongming Island into three different areas, each with a different function.

The central area of the island, which boasts Chongming Dongping Forest Park, will become the core area, featuring the seasonal forest scenery and the recreational centre of the Yangtze River Delta.

The northern division, overlooking Jiangsu Province, is slated for hi-tech research centres and large-scale projects such as theme parks and sports centres. The growing wetlands will be preserved for the development of ecological agriculture and a strategic reserve.

The southern part of the island, the current downtown of Chongming Island, will be developed into environmentally friendly residential areas.

The western area, which boasts tranquil lakes and natural charm, is scheduled for facilities for international conferences and the headquarters of international organizations.

The eastern part of the island, currently the location of the Dongtan wetlands, a resting place for birds migrating between Siberia and Australia, will be preserved as a showcase of the island’s friendly ecological environment.

“This is smart growth in action,?said Philip Enquist, a planning partner from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, which helped develop the master plan.

“The city of Shanghai is taking a bold step to embrace growth without sacrificing Chongming Island’s agriculture, wildlife or ecology. It’s the right thing to do across the planet, whether it’s in the growing cities of Southeast Asia or the expanding suburbs of the United States,?he said.

“Chongming is a latecomer in the heated development of Shanghai’s outlying areas because of impediments to transportation caused by the Yangtze River,?said Jiang Fuming, director of Chongming Ecological Island Research Centre from Tongji University.

The transportation bottleneck will be solved after a tunnel and an expressway are completed. Both have been approved by the State Council and are scheduled to start in December.

The total length of the cross-sea transportation project will be 25.5 kilometres which will make it the world’s longest project of its kind.

The project is designed to start from the Pudong District of Shanghai, and extend across Changxing island to Chenjia in Chongming county. The total investment is estimated to top 12.3 billion yuan (US$1.48 billion) according to Hu Jun, a vice-governor of Chongming County.

“We also plan to convert the current military airport into civil use to land non-military planes and helicopters,?said Hu.

Besides the cross-river transportation project, Chongming also plans to build more expressways on the island to form a network of highways by 2020.

“It will take only three-quarters of an hour to reach the downtown of Shanghai or the coastal cities in Jiangsu Province from any place in Chongming after the network is completed,?said Hu.

“We have a strong belief in Chongming’s bright future,?he said.

Environmental concern

However, Chongming’s backward agricultural economy is an obstacle to the development plans.

“The per capita gross domestic product of Chongming was only one-fourth that of Shanghai in 2003. We are facing a shortage of capital, technology and skilled workers,?said Sun.

Experts worry that Chongming will sacrifice environmental protection to bring in industrial projects that will cause pollution or passively impact the local environment.

“It is true Chongming needs large investment to realize its plan. But we have a strict criteria for bringing in new industries and other projects,?said Sun.

Chongming refused to allow Baosteel to build an automobile dismantling factory on the island recently although the company guaranteed they would cause little pollution.

“We welcome the investments in tourism and ecological agriculture. A theme park such as Disney Park is what we expected,?said Sun.

“We will make laws and regulations. Any projects and industries to be built in Chongming will comply with the law and be put under the strict assessment and supervision of a special group formed by representatives from local government, residents and experts,?said Sun.

Another problem is the outflow of skilled workers.

“Chongming is a place that focuses on education. We send about 2,000 high school students to universities all over the country but receive fewer than 10 university graduates every year,?said Zhou Weijie, a vice-governor of Chongming County.

“A majority of senior government officials of Chongming are borrowed from governmental departments of Shanghai. Most of them will work in Chongming for three or four years and then go back to Shanghai,?said Zhou.

Ecology experts are concerned whether the development of Chongming will have a great impact on the island’s environment and tranquility.

“The traffic generated by the cross-river transportation project and the expressway network will cause emissions and air pollution,?said Tao Fanghua, an ecology expert from Shanghai Normal University.

“The noise caused by the traffic and planes and the tourists flooding in later will have a passive impact on the migrating birds,?said a bird watcher who asked not to be named.

The biggest worry lies with the rapidly growing population. According to the Chongming development plan, the population will mushroom to 800,000 from the current 600,000 by 2020.

“The growing population and the gradually increasing number of tourists are not good news for the environment of the island,?said Professor Jiang.

Even so, Song Youfa is expecting more tourists to come to his house.