Twenty eight years ago, John Gjestrum, a Norwegian who was a board member of the International Committee of Museology, traveled to Liuzhi special district in Guizhou province to plant a tree that marked the start of the Sino-Norwegian Friendship Trees.

As editor-in-chief of Nordisk Museologi, he went there to guide the building of the Liuzhi Suojia Miao ethnic ecomuseum in Suojia town. Earlier, in October 1997, the heads of State of China and Norway witnessed a signing ceremony in Beijing that would lead to the establishment of the first ecomuseum in China.

In 1997, construction of the Suojia Ecomuseum Information Center started with the aid of 880,000 Norwegian kroner ($87,950) from the Norwegian government for the construction of the venue and the collection of physical objects. On Oct 31, 1998, the ecomuseum officially opened to the public.

As the first ecomuseum in Asia, the Suojia Miao Community is located in Longjia village at an average altitude of 2,000 meters and some 42 kilometers north of Liuzhi. Situated in high mountains, its natural conditions were extremely challenging and water sources were scarce.

In the neighboring 12 villages, there resides an ancient and mysterious branch of the Miao ethnic group — the Qingmiao branch, also known as the Longhorn Miao branch, with some 5,000 residents. Before the establishment of the ecomuseum, they lived in extremely harsh conditions and were regarded as a living fossil of pre-industrial life.

The Longhorn Miao village was built against the mountains with earthen walls and thatched cottages. With a simple way of life, the villagers worked from sunrise to sunset, spun and wove fabrics, waxed embroidery and used needles and threads to sew beautiful clothes and skirts.

The ecomuseum aims to keep a record of their social structure, housing, dressing habits, production, lifestyles, music and dance, displaying their gradual integration with the outside world.

Unlike a traditional museum, an ecomuseum aims to record a region's community, residents, heritages, cultural memory and public knowledge, instead of the buildings, collections, scientific knowledge and research.

The ecomuseum showcased China's gradual understanding of the importance of ecological preservation, said Yin Shigang, Party secretary of the project department of China Railway No 4 Engineering Group in building the Anshun-Panzhou section of Shanghai-Kunming Expressway, which traverses Liuzhi.

Liuzhi, sitting on the watershed of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River water systems, is a picturesque place with high mountains and more than 40 rivers and streams.

Liu Qiang, head of Liuzhi district government, said earlier this year that the district should continuously optimize its ecological environment.

Protecting the local environment has thus become a top priority while constructing the expressway, Yin said.

Inside Yongfeng village on the banks of Sancha River near his project department, the terraced fields are lush green and the main piers of the Xujiawan Bridge stand on both banks, forming a beautiful ecological picture, Yin said.

"During our construction work, we tried our best to maintain the original natural terrain and set up retaining walls and other engineering structures in areas with steep slopes and poor geological conditions to bolster their safety and stability, reducing the risk of soil erosion and minimizing the impact of construction on the environment," he said.

On both sides of the Xujiawan Bridge are terraced fields for farmers, which are a main source of income for the villagers, and Yin's project department has thought of scientific means to reduce damage to young crops in the construction area.

He said as the natural vegetation in Guizhou is dense, with large mountains, deep ditches and rugged roads, there is a severe shortage of basic farmland, and they need to stick to strict forest protection.

"As we are building an expressway, we need to set up a prefabrication yard to precast beams, which may occupy some 7 hectares of land traditionally," Yin recalled. "But following the principle that 'lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets', we finally decided to increase investment and build our smart beam yard in the mountains."

This not only helped reduce the land by nearly half, but also minimized the damage to the ecological environment, he added.

For Yin from CREC4 Fourth Engineering, his life during the past two years in building the expressway has been fruitful and rewarding.

He worked with over 2,400 employees, including 142 local ethnic minority workers who are glad to have the motorway in their hometown.

During traditional Miao festivals, the villagers of Yongfeng often invited Yin's colleagues to participate in cultural activities, enjoying art performances and Miao dances, expressing their sincere thanks to the builders with long-table banquets.

"The CREC4 employees have enabled our villagers to learn skills and steadily increase their income at their doorsteps. From building roads and helping impoverished students, they have truly built a bridge of friendship, injecting strong momentum into the rural vitalization in Longhe," said Wang Yongyue, Party secretary of Longhe town, adding that "the locals have come to recognize this".