When Environmentalism Becomes a Spectacle: The Green Mirage of an Eco-Village
I. The Internet-Famous Village as an Exhibition
Just a decade ago, this was merely a typical small mountain village steadily falling into “hollowing-out”. Now, to use the standard official phrasing, Lushui Village has charted a “sustainable development path that turns clear waters and lush mountains into ecological industries, revitalises the village and enriches its residents, ultimately cycling back to nurture the ecosystem.” In the name of nature conservation, it has drawn in industries ranging from design and tourism to cultural creativity and traditional crafts, effectively becoming a model village for rural revitalisation. Delegation after delegation arrives to study, visit and learn. They include departments from local and regional governments at all levels, teachers and students from universities, study tour providers, and companies organising team-building events, among others.
In this sense, Lushui Village is less a place where people simply live, and more a large-scale exhibition staged across the entire village. The houses, roads, shops and fields are all meticulously planned and laid out for guided tours, catering to outsiders’ dual visions of an ecological idyll and successful rural revitalisation.
For visiting tour groups, Lüshui Village’s rural operations company provides a basic guided reception service at a cost of 1,000 yuan. Visitors first attend a fifteen-minute briefing at the visitor centre, where the tale of how the village rewrote its own destiny is told and retold. Guides then lead the group on an on-site tour with commentary along the way. The standard route typically links the villagers’ council, the Lüshui Nature School, the craft museum, craft workshops, trailhead, and youth centre, before culminating at the reservoir cradled by the mountains—dubbed a ‘sanctuary’ of nature conservation. Almost every day, I watch coach after coach ply this exact route, ferrying a motley assortment of visitors who stop at each node to listen to different guides deliver virtually identical scripts.
Much like gallery artefacts accompanied by placards, the village features a professionally designed wayfinding system. Beginning with the entrance sign bearing the village name, it draws the visitor’s gaze toward the key sites that constitute this model of rural revitalisation, each supplemented by a brief explanatory text. The majority of directional signage, however, points towards the growing number of commercial venues within the village, such as restaurants and guesthouses. The language used to designate these places caters primarily to outsiders. For instance, the traditional gathering spot for local shops and stalls is labelled ‘CBD’, even though residents are far more accustomed to the original name, ‘Underbridge Market’.
As the volume of information deemed necessary for tourists continues to grow, these signs are becoming ever larger and taller, creating a rather imposing spectacle. The original wayfinding system, by contrast, featured clean, desaturated colours, with compact panels and restrained typography that blended seamlessly into the rural topography, avoiding any sense of visual intrusion or heaviness. Yet, signage legible only to pedestrians simply cannot fulfil local businesses’ need to draw in trade; they demand larger panels and bolder fonts to catch the eye of passing motorists.
II. Manufacturing a Green Illusion
The story of Lushui Village’s green metamorphosis—from a “polluted mountain village” to a “future village”—is frequently lauded by outsiders. Yet Yugang, a friend who returned to the countryside to take up farming, has raised doubts with me as to whether the place truly qualifies as an “eco-village.”
The account of how Lushui Village became an “eco-village” runs as follows: prior to 2015, for a considerable time, villagers relied primarily on managing moso bamboo forests upstream of the village reservoir, selling bamboo timber and shoots. In pursuit of higher yields, they overused chemical fertilisers and herbicides, ultimately causing non-point source pollution, such as excessive nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the reservoir.
At the time, an environmental NGO partnered with the government to lease several hundred mu of moso bamboo forest from local farmers upstream of the drinking water reservoir. By halting the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the bamboo groves, water quality in the reservoir was improved. The project secured funding from an internet giant and a financial firm to cover the land rent.The internet giant, in turn, could use the partnership to bolster its “green” public image, even as its e-commerce operations churn out vast quantities of plastic waste every year.
As external funding and staff began to flow in, the conservation project spawned the “Green Water Nature School”, which guided villagers in running guesthouses and rural eateries to cater to the growing number of visitors seeking accommodation and meals. Concurrently, the project formed a bond with a design company while co-planning an exhibition. This partnership eventually saw the company relocate its entire team to Green Water Village, bringing dozens of employees with it and converting an abandoned, socialist-style village hall into a non-profit craft museum.
A few years ago, the village collective set up a village operations company and appointed a “village CEO” to draw in more commercial tenants and design studios. The company also curated a slate of events spanning art and music festivals to sporting tournaments. During public holidays, it would bring in recreational and art installations such as the “Egg Castle Party” and “Cats Ascending the Sky” to add colour to the village.
While these new business ventures undoubtedly breathe life into the village, they rarely engage with agriculture—the bedrock of rural existence and the most direct link to the natural world.
Beyond its reputation as an internet-famous village, Lǜshuǐ is also a bamboo-producing and rice-farming region. The lower mountainous areas are extensively planted with moso bamboo, valued for both its shoots and timber, while small patches of early bamboo and other native groves cluster around fields and homes. The flat river valleys in the mountains contain thousands of acres of farmland. Years ago, attracted by government subsidies and profit margins, much of this arable land was converted into commercial nurseries. In recent years, however, permanent basic farmland protection policies have seen most of these flat areas reverted from woodland back to cultivation.
Yet, like so many villages across China, Lǜshuǐ is rapidly shedding the traditional reliance on, and stewardship of, the land. Today, most young people have left to work elsewhere, and those born in the 1980s or later largely lack farming experience. Consequently, these plots have been consolidated and leased to a handful of outside contractors, who practice modern, chemical-intensive agriculture, relying on fertilisers and pesticides to maintain large-scale cultivation.
Therefore, upon this land, when you gaze upon emerald or golden rice paddies, you might be tempted to view them as soul-restoring vistas. Yet strip away the filter, and you will uncover swathes of charred, blackened field bunds concealed beneath the rice panicles—scars left by excessive herbicide application or concentrations pushed far too high. Scattered across the fields and their margins, discarded fertiliser sacks and pesticide containers quietly testify to the widening rift between humanity and the earth.
Lüshui Village, which markets itself as an eco-conscious community, remains trapped in the shadow of chemical agriculture. Across China and worldwide alike, the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides triggers soil acidification and compaction, proliferates crop pests and diseases, and depletes organic matter. It pushes farmers into a vicious cycle of dependency on chemical inputs, which ultimately results in food destined for urban consumers exceeding safety limits for pesticide residues and heavy metals. Today, when we speak of ecology, this string of stark realities is precisely what we must confront first.
When a village no longer cherishes the land and ceases to nurture the health of its soil and water at the root level, the title of “ecological village” becomes little more than a castle in the air.
Beyond agricultural production, Green Water Village’s lifestyle is also increasingly mirroring the high-energy, high-consumption patterns of urban living, without developing alternative, sustainable frameworks: Public transport is scarce here; cars are the primary mode of transport, with many commuting long distances between the city and the village. The proliferation of e-commerce leaves courier stations swamped with parcels daily, generating vast amounts of packaging waste. Native vegetation has been cleared in some areas to make way for cherry blossom viewing groves and monotonous green belts… Aside from still being able to buy vegetables grown by local elders in the farmers’ market section, the place even resembles American suburbs—a lifestyle built on high per capita energy consumption.
Thus, when tour guides tell visitors that “Green Water Village boasts a pristine ecology, with fireflies visible in summer, and the Green Water Nature School even offers a ‘Night Firefly Watching’ course,” they overlook the growing light pollution, ground paving, redevelopment, and water contamination from pesticides within the village—all factors threatening the survival and breeding of fireflies. Visitors may marvel at the “untouched” rural landscape, but the negative impacts of human activity on local flora and fauna receive neither genuine attention nor meaningful discussion.
The starting point of Green Water Village’s success story was the improvement of water quality at its drinking water source—an achievement worthy of recognition. However, in its subsequent development path, centred on “display” and exhibition, it has strayed from its original eco-environmental mission, even obscuring more pressing systemic issues within rural ecology. Yet, as the narrative of Green Water Village’s success is widely celebrated, the government, media, village operators, and tourists have collectively manufactured a green illusion in the service of tourism consumption.
III. A Future Model for the Countryside?
The village’s self-promotion and commercial operations have undoubtedly helped attract capital, public attention, foundation grants, and official backing, driving economic growth and transforming its overall profile. Yet can this model of development truly be replicated by other villages? Does drawing on this experience genuinely chart a course toward a more ecological and endogenous exploration of the rural future?
The village’s outward narrative of transitioning from nature conservation to rural tourism sounds straightforward and seamless, but it is by no means a blueprint for every location. When the water source conservation project was introduced, the conditions were perfectly aligned: the mountain bamboo groves were already facing a situation where “older residents could no longer tend them, and newcomers lacked the expertise.” With the bamboo market contracting and profits plummeting, the conservation initiative could easily lease the groves from villagers at a low cost to implement its measures. Relying on a convenient location and scenic surroundings, locals were able to pivot smoothly from bamboo farming to tourism and hospitality, suffering little financial loss and, in many cases, even increasing their income.
I once lived in a village where fruit farming formed the backbone of local livelihoods, yet the heavy reliance on agrochemicals had severely contaminated the wells the community depended on for daily use. Rumours persisted that many villagers had developed kidney stones, prompting some to switch entirely to bottled water. Nevertheless, the high economic value of these crops meant locals could stay put rather than migrate for work. Countless other communities rely for their livelihood on activities that cause severe environmental damage, and it is precisely these regions that supply the metals, minerals, food, and raw materials indispensable to modern life… When faced with such widespread and complex realities, striking a balance between community livelihoods and the broader ecological health of the countryside invariably demands longer timeframes and iterative adjustments. It cannot be achieved by simply copying Green Water Village’s blueprint.
Another frequently cited aspect of the Green Water Village case is the steady influx and return of younger generations. In stark contrast to the decline of ‘hollowed-out’ villages left behind with only the elderly and children, Green Water Village has attracted new arrivals and drawn back local youth. The arrival of newcomers, the return of second-generation residents, and the incubation of local enterprises all point to the self-sustaining nature of this development model. What began a decade ago as water source protection has organically evolved into a place where people naturally choose to stay and put down roots. This stands in marked contrast to other villages where government planning or capital investment deliberately zones land for tourism. The village operators aim to cultivate a specific impression: this is a community growing organically, offering a slower pace of country living, rather than another ‘internet-famous’ village designed merely for photo opportunities and social media check-ins.
Yet for many of these ‘new villagers’ and returning young people, employment is directly tied to tourism rather than the land itself. They run eateries and cafés, work for village management companies and other hospitality providers, or offer workshops on intangible cultural heritage crafts and educational tours. Even long-standing residents are increasingly dependent on tourism for their income, renovating homes on their allocated residential plots to run guesthouses, or setting up market stalls in tourist hotspots at weekends and during holidays. A significant number of younger residents use the village merely as a base; they are either digital nomads or lead a dual urban–rural existence, commuting to work in nearby towns before returning to the village in the evenings or at weekends.
Whether through rural tourism or this migratory, commuter-style lifestyle, the countryside has effectively become an extension of urban working and consumption patterns—a backyard for the city. Under this model, and despite Green Water Village’s success in revitalising villages and boosting household incomes, serious questions remain as to whether it can truly deliver on its promise of long-term sustainability.
A vibrant rural community need not rely on agriculture alone; it is entirely reasonable for it to develop a diverse range of businesses and specialisations. Yet, in an effort to cater to the external demands and gaze of city-based artists, designers, consumers and the media, there is a tendency to neglect the agricultural practices that bind people most closely to the land, alongside other enterprises that grow organically from within the rural context. The end result of staging the countryside in this manner is often a further drift towards property-driven commercialisation, gradually veering away from the very ‘ecological’ vision that Green Water Village originally championed.
At present, Lushui Village can still sustain its bond with the land through the local knowledge of the older generation, struggling to keep a balance with the village’s commercial operations. Yet two generations from now, once most villagers have abandoned farming or moved to the cities, where will the village’s culture and traditions lead? And what will become of its natural ecology?
Life in Lushui Village carries on, vibrant as ever. Only time will tell.
All images in this article were taken by the author.
Editor: Zheng Yuyang