Lin Hong once watched her parents come home from the mushroom sheds with smoke-stained clothes and exhausted eyes. Today, she pours tea for guests who gaze through floor-to-ceiling windows at a burbling creek and lush mountains in the distance.

"My family used to cut trees and burn spent mushroom logs. The smoke was everywhere," said Lin, who is in her 40s, as she adjusted a cushion in her boutique guesthouse in Chongtou village, at the heart of the Yunhe rice terraces. "Now our guests come to see the greenery," she said.

Lin's shift from mushroom farmer's daughter to innkeeper is a shorthand for the transformation of Chongtou township, where the terraces cascade down hillsides that were once denuded for fuel.?

That change — from ecological degradation to international acclaim, including winning the 2025 Food and Agriculture Organization's recognition for its comprehensive management solution — has turned Yunhe into a destination for decision-makers from many developing countries, wrestling with how to replace a dying industry, local officials said.

In the early 2000s, mushroom farming was the economic backbone of this corner of Zhejiang province. At its peak around 2007, the local fresh mushroom market was the largest in southwestern Zhejiang, handling over 100 metric tons daily, mostly for export to Japan and South Korea.

But the industry collapsed as cheaper production from central and western China flooded the market, undercutting Yunhe's small-scale hillside farms. Young villagers moved to cities, and the terraces — once carefully cultivated for generations — began to fallow. Nearly two-thirds lay abandoned.

"A place must first understand its own resources," said Kong Xiangfeng, the township's Party secretary, when asked what advice he would give policymakers in other developing nations eyeing a new industry. "Don't envy what others have built. If you protect your ecological assets, your turn will come," he said.

Yunhe's turn arrived around 2010, when a new county Party secretary saw tourism potential in the derelict terraces and started building them into a major tourist destination. By 2021, the government had launched a 27-million-yuan ($3.97 million) wetland restoration project. Three hundred hectares of degraded terraces have since been revived.

Today, surface water is clean enough for swimming, air quality is China's top Grade I, and the Cabot's tragopan — a first-class nationally protected bird — has returned after decades of disappearance.

Lin's guesthouse, the second she's opened in the county, features floor-to-ceiling windows that frame a rocky creek and the deep green mountains beyond. In the parking lot, a charging pile stands ready for electric vehicles — a nod to the new, eco-conscious clientele.

"Most of my guests come from Shanghai, Jiangsu, even Beijing," she said. "Occasionally, foreign backpackers wander in." Her annual revenue exceeds 200,000 yuan, she added.

Kong said the township's experience proves that protecting nature can outlast extractive industries. "For years, we felt left behind because we had no factories," he said. "But we kept our mountains green. Now people pay to visit them."

Since 2024, the China National Bamboo Research Center has brought African officials here for training.

"If you destroy your environment for short-term gain, you won't keep your people. They will leave for places with cleaner air and water," Kong added.

Chen Ye contributed to this story.