China has made significant strides to curb various kinds of pollution to protect the environment. Local governments, in particular, have encouraged the participation of what's known as social capital. In north China's Shanxi Province, one entrepreneur has spent hundreds of millions of yuan to turn abandoned mining sites to mountains covered by lush greenery. Our reporter Hu Chao has the details.

This is Mount Yuquan in September 2017 -- over 4 million trees covering an area of 8 million square meters, with spray irrigation systems densely distributed all over the place. But just nine years ago, this place was barren -- rocky mountains damaged by large-scale mining. Local workers had tried hard to plant trees and save it. The transformation was the result of efforts by Zhang Junping, a former entrepreneur who's already invested over 600 million yuan in repairing the damaged areas and planting trees. Zhang's team is busy planting new trees this spring.

Zhang says repairing the damaged mountains to make them suitable for tree planting consumes a lot of time and money.

HU CHAO TAIYUAN, SHANXI PROVINCE Over the past nine years, Zhang Junping's team has been planting trees on about a hundred rocky mountain slopes. Now they aim to turn another 70 to 80 bare slopes like this into green in the next five years.

Zhang enjoys being on the construction site. Last year, he even insisted on coming even with a broken leg. He used to have doubts about the mission, but he chose to move forward.

Although the forest park is not finished yet and hasn't reaped any profits, Zhang says he does not regret his choice. He says every tree is like his own child, and watching them grow is the happiest thing in the world. Hu Chao, CGTN, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province.