Wuyi's Da Hong Pao Mother Trees Named a National Biodiversity Case for 2026

China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment named the germplasm protection of Wuyi Mountain's Da Hong Pao mother trees one of ten national biodiversity conservation and sustainable-use cases for 2026, at the country's main event marking the International Day for Biological Diversity, held in Shanghai on May 22, Minbei Daily and Da Wuyi News reported.

The trees in question are three bushes, six stems in total, over 360 years old, rooted in the rock face at Jiulongke gorge inside the core protection zone of Wuyi Mountain National Park. They are the source stock for Da Hong Pao, the cultivar that gives Wuyi rock tea its best-known name, and the plants themselves are counted as part of the mountain's World Cultural and Natural Heritage listing.

The city's protection plan, as described in the reporting, runs a "one tree, one file" record for each of the six stems, with round-the-clock monitoring of environmental conditions and growth, plus tree-body restoration and biological pest control. The trees carry product liability insurance worth 100 million yuan (about US$14 million).

Around that core, Wuyi Mountain has built a germplasm network of one national core nursery plus a set of enterprise and research nurseries, which has preserved 3,299 tea germplasm specimens, 74 of them entered into the national germplasm database. Five national-level tea cultivars have been bred out of the program so far, including two named Jinfuxing and Zifuxing.

Nanping Ecology and Environment Bureau deputy director Zeng Qiang and Wuyi Mountain vice mayor Jian Jiyuan attended the announcement. Da Wuyi News summarized the city's own framing of the program as three mother trees leading one tea forest and, through it, an entire regional industry.

What reaches a drinker's cup as Da Hong Pao is grown from cuttings of this line, propagated out through the nursery network, not leaf from the six stems themselves. The national listing is a government accounting of how that line is being kept alive, in a file, a nursery, and a sum insured, rather than a change to what reaches the pot.

Sources: Minbei Daily, 探索珍稀茶树种质资源保护新路径; Da Wuyi News, 武夷山大红袍母树种质资源保护入选全国十大实践成果.