來源：中國日報海外版

A played-out strip mine－an ugly environmental mess－was magically transformed in the United Kingdom by one man's vision, starting in the mid-1990s.

Today, words hardly do justice to the spectacular horticultural, educational and leisure destination known appropriately as the Eden Project, the brainchild of British environmentalist Tim Smit, which now stands near Cornwall in southwestern England. The project is an educational charity on an epic scale, connecting people to the living planet.

Massive climate-controlled geodesic domes, nestled in a crater, house the world's largest manmade rainforest. The grounds outside are lush and green, rivaling the moon Pandora of Avatar movie fame.

Now the Eden magic is coming to northern Tianjin, where authorities plan to transform a defunct coal mine from pit to paradise.

Affiliated with the mega project in England and guided by its experts, the Eden effort in Tianjin's Jizhou district is a pace-setting approach for dealing with thousands of mines in China that have been decommissioned because of concerns over environmental pollution－around 300 of them in Jizhou alone. Completion of the Tianjin project is scheduled for 2021.

What to do with such wastelands has been a puzzle. But now the authorities are catching Eden's vision of how to turn the sites into tourist attractions.

The Eden concept is even spreading beyond mine reclamation. In coastal Qingdao, Shandong province, and in inland Yan'an, Shaanxi province, for example, other kinds of land have been appropriated for similar facilities. In New Zealand and the United States, a similar approach has been adopted.

With an investment of 9 billion yuan ($1.28 billion), Jizhou's Eden project will cover 1.14 square kilometers, said Li Qun, an executive of Jizhou Urban Construction Investment Co, which is managing the project.

Li Jian, vice-director of the district, has "high hopes the project will lure 2 million tourists, create 10,000 jobs and generate tax revenues of up to 1 billion yuan within four years".

The Eden Project's UK version currently hosts more than a million visitors and has brought in about $2 billion.

Eden represents one of the more attractive solutions to the problem of defunct mines. Local governments are hurting from the loss of revenues after a massive wave of mine closings that began in 2017.

China Mineral Resources News said that by 2020, China will have closed up to 12,000 coal mines, a figure that's expected to balloon to 15,000 by 2030, because of environmental concerns.

Li Jian, Jizhou's vice-director, said the district has closed up to 12.46 square kilometers of mines, and an additional 50 sq km have been closed in surrounding areas.

"It is critical for us to deal with the deteriorating ecology and environment," Li said.

Since 2013, the district has been bulldozing the land flat at five major sites, but other projects require a more hefty investment.

Xiao Fei, senior engineer at the Tianjin North China Geological Exploration Bureau, said many of the closed mines in Jizhou and others around the country are located in ecological conservation zones, where it's much more difficult, and expensive, to undertake long-term conservation beyond basic surface rehabilitation.

Some mine areas initially turned green but then reverted because of a lack of sustained care. For example, all of the trees that had been planted at a closed 1.33-sq-km copper mine in the Tongguan Mountain area of Tongling, Anhui province, died just a year later.

If a mine is not located in a conservation zone, other concepts are possible. For instance, at a recent national mine summit in Tianjin, it was suggested that companies turn some rehabilitated mine sites into testing centers for driverless vehicles, a sector that's booming in China.

Even more innovative, a five-year plan for 2016-20 calls for building "smart mines", a concept that would make them more "digitalized, information-driven and intelligent".

In addition, nearly 700 Chinese companies began a "green mine" campaign in 2017 that combines production with environmentalism.

A prime example is Jin Hui Mining Co's operation in Longnan, Gansu province, which produces 1.5 million metric tons of lead and zinc annually using heavy equipment.

But if you visit the quiet, forestlike environment at the surface, you might not know the mine exists. A natural area beckons visitors, even as the digging machines work 800 meters below the surface, well out of earshot.

"We are proud of the fact that we can hear birds singing outside but cannot hear any noise produced by the machinery underground," said Zhang Shixin, a board member of the mining company and Party chief of Gansu Yatter Investment Group.

The site has been designated a national-level 4A scenic area, with 800,000 square meters of trees.

Jin Hui Mining Co was honored as the nation's first "green factory" by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and has become a role model for the province.

Randy Wright contributed to this story.

譯文：

礦井轉型給人們展示了伊甸園

從20世紀90年代中期開始，一個人的遠見在英國神奇地改變了一個廢棄的露天礦——一個丑陋的環境爛攤子。

如今，這個以園藝、教育和休閑著稱的令人驚嘆的目的地被稱為“伊甸園計劃”(Eden Project)，是英國環保主義者蒂姆·斯密特(Tim Smit)的創意之作，位于英格蘭西南部的康沃爾郡(Cornwall)附近。該項目是一個史詩級別的教育典范，展示了人類和所生活星球的聯系。

巨大的可控制氣候的弧形穹頂坐落在火山上，里面是世界上最大的人造雨林。外面的地面郁郁蔥蔥，綠意盎然，堪比電影《阿凡達》中的潘多拉星球。

如今，“伊甸園魔法”正在天津北部上演，當地政府計劃將一座廢棄的煤礦從礦井改造成天堂。

與英國的大型項目類似，在其專家的指導下，天津薊州地區的伊甸園項目是處理中國數千座因涉及環境污染問題而被叫停的礦山的一種示范方法——僅在薊州就有約300座礦山。天津項目預計2021年竣工。

如何處理這些地一直是個難題。但現在，當局正在學習“伊甸園計劃”的方式，即如何將這些地方變成旅游景點。

伊甸園的概念甚至蔓延到礦山開墾之外。例如，在沿海的山東省青島市和內陸的陜西省延安市，其他類型的土地也被用作類似的設施。新西蘭和美國也采取了類似的做法。

薊州城市建設投資有限公司負責伊甸園項目管理的李群說，薊州的伊甸園項目將投資90億元人民幣(12.8億美元)，占地1.14平方公里。

該區副區長李建表示，“該項目有望在四年內吸引200萬游客，創造1萬個就業崗位，創造10億元的稅收收入。”

伊甸園計劃的英國版目前接待了100多萬游客，帶來了大約20億美元的收入。

伊甸是解決廢棄礦區問題的較有吸引力的辦法之一。自2017年以來，中國各地關閉了大批煤礦，地方政府正因此而收入受損。

《中國礦產資源報》稱，由于環境問題，到2020年，中國將關閉多達1.2萬個煤礦，到2030年，這一數字預計將激增至1.5萬個。

薊州副區長李建說，該地區已經關閉了12.46平方公里的煤礦，周邊地區還關閉了50平方公里的煤礦。

李建說:“應對不斷惡化的生態環境對我們來說至關重要。”

自2013年以來，該地區已經推平了五個主要地塊，但其他項目需要更大的投資。

天津華北地質勘探局高級工程師肖飛表示，薊州和全國各地許多已關閉的煤礦都位于生態保護區，在那里，除了基本的地表修復外，進行長期保護要困難得多，成本也高得多。

一些礦區最初變成綠色，但后來由于缺乏持續的照料而又惡化。例如，安徽省銅陵銅管山地區一處1.33平方公里關閉的銅礦，所有的樹都在一年后死亡。

如果礦山不在保護區，則可以采用其他的概念。例如，最近在天津舉行的一次全國礦業峰會上，有人建議企業將一些修復后的礦區改造成無人駕駛汽車的測試中心，這一領域在中國正蓬勃發展。

更有創新性的是，2016- 2020年的五年計劃要求建設“智能礦山”，這一概念將使它們更加“數字化、信息化和智能化”。

此外，近700家中國企業在2017年發起了一場“綠色礦山”運動，將生產與環保結合起來。

一個典型的例子是甘肅隴南的金徽礦業公司，該公司使用重型設備每年處理150萬噸的鉛鋅礦石。

但是，如果你來到這個安靜的，環境像森林一樣的地表，你可能不會知道這里是個礦區。天然的美景吸引著游客，采礦設備在地下800米處工作，地表完全聽不到它們的聲音。

“我們可以聽到鳥兒的歌唱，但卻聽不到地下機器發出的任何噪音，這讓我們感到自豪，”該礦業公司董事、甘肅亞特投資集團黨委書記張世新表示。這里被評為國家4A級旅游景區，綠化面積80萬平方米。金徽礦業有限責任公司被工業和信息化部評為全國首批“綠色工廠”。