China News Service, Chongqing, November 2. Title: "Rebirth" of Thuja, the "giant panda" in the plant world: from "extinct in the wild" to millions of seedlings returning to the forest
Author Liang Qinqing
Deep in Daba Mountain, on the cliffs of the state-owned Ma Yun Forest Farm in Kaizhou District, Chongqing City, the branches of Thuja cypress are twisting and standing vigorously.
Thuja thuja, known as the "giant panda" of the plant world, was once hard to find due to the impact of climate change and human activities. In 1998, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared Thuja cypress "extinct in the wild"; a year later, this ancient species was rediscovered in Xuebao Mountain, Kaizhou, Chongqing, with a wild population of less than 10,000 plants at that time.
As an important native distribution area of thuja, Kaizhou shoulders the important task of germplasm preservation, breeding research and return to the wild. Recently, China News Network visited the Thuja Thuja National Forest Germplasm Resource Bank in Kaizhou District, Chongqing City, and saw that Thuja seedlings bred in different ways were arranged in zones in the intelligent seedling greenhouse. Scientific researchers were measuring the height and ground diameter of the seedlings one by one, and systematically recording growth data.
Huang Jiyong, the person in charge of the resource bank, said that the slopes in the high-altitude areas of Xuebao Mountain are the main distribution areas of natural communities of Thuja. The habitat of Thuja is barren and harsh, and the existing wild plants are aging and have weak fruit-bearing ability. If the breeding problem is not overcome, even if in-situ protection is implemented, the wild population will be difficult to escape the risk of extinction.
Previously, there was no precedent for artificial breeding of thuja. The local research team, together with the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences, conducted repeated experiments and finally explored two technical paths: seed seedlings and cuttings of high-quality trees, which solved the bottleneck of artificial propagation of Thuja cypress.
With the continuous breakthroughs in cutting rooting technology, the bottleneck of seedling shortage has gradually been broken. Today, the Thuja National Forest Germplasm Resource Bank has built 11 intelligent seedling greenhouses, equipped with breeding laboratories, comprehensive utilization laboratories and automated light substrate production workshops. It has the ability to produce 1 million rare and endangered seedlings every year, and can stably carry out Thuja cutting breeding. Since the rescue and breeding work was launched in 2013, more than 3 million thuja seedlings and cuttings have been cultivated in Kaizhou.
"Protection is not simply to seal the species. The ultimate goal is to allow it to return to the mountains and reproduce naturally." Huang Jiyong said that the resource bank has documented and numbered more than 7,900 wild thuja trees in the Ma Yun Forest Farm, carefully guarding this precious genetic heritage. Since the return to the wild was launched in 2015, a total of 1.57 million thuja trees have been planted in Kaizhou in suitable habitats, covering an area of more than 11,600 acres. The early planting seedlings have grown stably, and some individuals have been able to regenerate naturally in the native environment.
In order to preserve the "genetic code" of Thuja cypress, the scientific research team built a triple protection system of "in-situ + ex-situ + facilities": setting up conservation forests and monitoring plots in Kaizhou, Chengkou, Chongqing and Xuanhan, Sichuan and other places of origin; establishing more than 80 ex-situ protection test bases in 20 provinces across the country, transplanting 16,000 seedlings, and conducting cross-regional adaptive cultivation experiments, with an average survival rate of 85%. Thuja is becoming a new choice for vegetation restoration in many ecologically fragile areas.
On the basis of scientific research and protection, Kaizhou relies on resource banks to promote the transformation of ecological value into economic value. The local area follows the principle of “protection first, scientific utilization” and develops new business formats such as Thuja deep processing, research and cultural creation, and ecological cultural tourism in an orderly manner. Huang Jiyong introduced that scientific researchers have detected more than 500 ingredients from Thuja cypress, which have high medicinal and health care development value. Currently, more than 10 high value-added products such as Thuja cypress essential oil and incense have been developed. In the future, the application potential will be explored in intensive processing.
This ecological answer sheet from Daba Mountain has also gained international recognition. In November 2025, at the 20th Annual Global Forum on Human Settlements held in Geneva, Switzerland, Kaizhou District's "Successful Practice of Thuja Protection and Sustainable Utilization - Solving the World-class Problem of Giant Panda Breeding in the Plant World" project won the "Global Ecological Restoration and Protection Example Award", contributing local experience to the systematic protection of endangered plants around the world.
Bashan is green and Thuja is evergreen. From being declared "extinct in the wild" to the return of millions of seedlings to the orderly transformation of economic value, Thuja's rebirth is a vivid epitome of biodiversity protection in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
