HOHHOT, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Yang Zijian, 49, a photographer in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, describes himself as a "flower chaser".
Shooting apricot blossom in April and trollflowers in July, he knows the blooming period of every kind of flower in the region. "I travel around the region from April to August to chase blooming flowers," he says.
Yang has been engaging in landscape photography for more than 20 years. He shot a short video of Chinese herbaceous peonies and uploaded it onto a social platform in 2016, gaining more than 100,000 views and nearly 60,000 likes.
"I never thought that so many people liked the video," he said. "They said to me that flowers in the grassland were amazingly beautiful and wanted me to shoot more flowers." He has collected information about flowers from herdsmen, photographers and travellers ever since.
Yang has seen a huge improvement of the environment and ecology in the grassland through his camera. "I recently often shot photos of swans, great bustards and other wild animals, which was rare five to six years ago."
"The sandstorm used to be so strong that it could stop an off-road vehicle when I went to Zhenglan Banner of Xilingol League in the region more than 10 years ago," he added. "Now flowers are everywhere."
The vegetation coverage of the banner, which is on the edge of a desert, increased to 55 percent from 34 percent in 2000 since a project to fight sandstorm sources was launched in 2000.
"Without knowing why, I cried when I saw dozens of hectares of Chinese herbaceous peonies in Xilingol League in the region," Yang said. "I held my breath fearing the beauty would vanish due to my appearance."
Hundreds of thousands of wild birds of more than 40 kinds inhabit the league thanks to a series of ecological restoration projects launched in the region.
"More beautiful flowers and taller grass reveal that the environment in grassland is better and better," Yang said. "Grassland with blooming flowers has a kind of beauty that cannot be described with words, which is why I want to show more people their beauty with my photos."
