What a day in Enshi Grand Canyon! As an ambitious and accomplished group, we walked for 7 hours in the mountains, covering both the crack and the valley trails. I’m writing as my calves are still sore, but I would trade anything for seeing the amazing view and this “stairs-trauma” bonding experience.
Thinking about how many years it would take for this landscape to form is beyond breathtaking. I enjoyed touching the cliff stone and feeling the vapor coming out of the waterfall. Of course we have to periodically take breaks to catch some breaths, but that also prompts some of our encounters with the local carriers who are waiting to carry customers up to mountain top.
After our long day in the canyon, we met up with Prof. Xie from CCNU and heard her talk more about Enshi tourism. So she explained that the service workers are mostly from Tu ethnic group, and the carriers were farmers in the past but they could not generate income from farming alone. Now they make money because of the development of tourism.
As I reflect upon her observation, I feel a little conflicted about the development of tourism. I do think the tourism would generate more employment opportunities for local residents, but they are never high-level jobs. It’s mainly manual labor that is easily replaceable. As a state-owned park, most of the generated revenue from tourism still goes to the government. And now since everything inside the park is state-owned, local people who used to live in or around the mountains can no longer use the resources from the area.
I wonder if we think in terms of sustainability, is the way our tourism is structured here in Enshi a sustainable way to use the environment or the ethnic human capital?
