HARBIN－Walking on thick debris, Wang Daohui hears the creaks of the wood and feels the warm sunshine streaming through gaps in the tall trees. This is a rewarding moment for the forest ranger, who serves in Heilongjiang province.

Wang works in the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, which spans an area of 1.4 million hectares in the northeastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.

"This is a Korean pine, that one is a spruce, and the one over there is a maple," said Wang, who is familiar with almost all the varieties of trees in the forest.

Four decades ago, he began his work as a lumberjack at Heping Forest Farm, which was later incorporated into the park.

Wang felt a sense of pride in taking the job after graduation. At the time, the farm played an important role in providing a steady wood supply to other regions as cities across China vigorously began to build.

The monthly income back then was also quite satisfactory, he added.

"We were opposed to predatory logging, so we always cut the bigger trees rather than the smaller ones, and lopped down bad ones over good ones," he said.

Thinking that he would work as a lumberjack for life, Wang was surprised and also a little frustrated when he was told that logging would be prohibited on the farm in 2003.

Many of his former colleagues left the forests in pursuit of better livelihoods, but Wang decided to stay as he heard a nature reserve would be set up to protect the forest and its wildlife.

The former hustle and bustle of the wood farm, as well as the roaring of chainsaws, was replaced by the sounds of pleasant breezes blowing through trees and birdsong in the mountains.

In 2008, Wang officially became a forest ranger, responsible for preventing fires, forest pests and disease, and protecting animals within his section of the reserve.

He quickly learned about different plant species.

"I sometimes worked as a guide for university professors when they came to conduct field research, and they taught me about different plants," Wang said.

In 2017, China launched a pilot program to set up the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, and the environment in the region has greatly improved since then.

Wang said that now, Siberian tigers and other rare wild animals are frequently seen in the park.

"Look, that might be the tracks of a roe deer," said Wang, pointing to a nearby clump of grass possibly bent under the weight of animals.

To protect wild animals, Wang and his colleagues have also cleared away old hunting traps left in the mountains for years.

"There are almost none left now," he said.

While patrolling the forest over the years, Wang has encountered black bears, was once trapped in the mountains, and has also got lost and strayed into dangerous areas.

However, the job has given him a continuous sense of accomplishment, such as when hidden cameras captured images of wild animals, food left at supplementary feeding sites was eaten, or samples of animal feces were collected.

"It was kind of depressing when logging activities were banned," Wang said. "Now, I am in love with the forests."

Xinhua