Where lions and zebras roam, and lava rivers glow

Project shows power of green development and technology.

- Li Menghan reports

From top: Members of the Chinese survey team check a stone sample at the geopark. Giraffes wander in the geopark.

Early one morning a little more than two years ago over 50 people, out of breath, gathered near a volcano in Tanzania to witness something spectacular: molten lava, as clear as melted gold, flowing through cracks in the crater.

Steam mixed with the orange-red lava and the black volcanic ash emanating from Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Ngorongoro-Lengai Global Geopark in Arusha created a thick river of fire.

The witnesses — Tanzanian and Chinese — who felt the scorching heat and smelt the strong sulfur in the air that morning had been climbing for more than seven hours. The climb, with an altitude gain of nearly 3,000 metres and a 45-degree incline, had pushed them to their physical limits.

Their work, surveying the volcano crater as part of a reconstruction project undertaken by the Chinese government to help develop Tanzania's first and only global geopark, had to be done before dawn. Once sunlight appears, the lava in the crater gradually turns grey, making it look like little more than any muddy river.

From almost being excluded from the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network to having its construction progress fully recognised, the revival of the Ngorongoro-Lengai Global Geopark, the first geopark built with Chinese foreign aid, has fully demonstrated China's wisdom of empowerment through green development and technology, as well as its philosophy of harmony between humans and nature.