Chinese eco-park closes down forcibly as tourists strip away its flowers

Thursday, July 4, 2019

In southwest China, an ecological park has been compelled to close down for the rest of 2019 as hundreds of tourists have stripped it of its celebrated lotus flowers.

Since late March, Longqiao Cultural and Ecological Park in Sichuan province’s Lu County has been closed to construct watercourse and was due to reopen soon.

The park is popular for its expansive fields of lotus flowers that cover approximately 250,000 square meters (62 acres) – an area bigger than Grand Central Terminal of New York.

But from the start of the summer blossom season previous month, hundreds of people have been getting into the park to pick the flowers, forcing managers to keep it closed for the rest of the year.

“We cannot control the tourists. We can just guarantee we’ve done our job well. We’ve put notes on the park gate and near the flower field and we have security personnel on patrol as well,” a member of staff surnamed Zhou said.

Zhou further added that the park construction work was almost finished but that there was no point in reopening as there were no flowers left in the park, virtually.

Approximately 200 to 300 people a day are still considered to be breaking into the park, and have compelled management to increase the number of security patrols.

Videos and photos of people picking lotus flowers have been circulated extensively online and drawn criticism.

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