Story between Shaoxing farmer and ancient tree shared at COP29 [Video]

BEIJING, Nov. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The 29th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Huang Tianming, a 62-year-old farmer from Zhan’ao village in Keqiao district, Shaoxing, East China’s Zhejiang province, delivered a speech at a side event themed “Advancing the Implementation of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda”, on Nov 18.

Huang, travelling 6,000 km, shared a story between his family and ancient Chinese torreya trees, the oldest of which is 1,570 years old.

“Our story with the trees started from ancestors, who migrated to this place 800 years ago. Now, six generations from the same family are still guarding the trees,” said Huang. The farmer spends more than 200 days a year in the Chinese torreya tree forest, weeding, fertilizing, pruning.

For hundreds of years, local farmers follow ancestors’ practices to live with the trees …