Park in China Closed ‘Cuz Tourists Anyhowly Took Away Its Lotus Flowers

Every time I hear some renowned authority proclaim “Mankind shall endeavour to save the Earth”, I can’t help but snigger. Now do not be mistaken; I’m not insinuating that mankind’s incapable of saving the Earth. Rather, it’s just the sheer irony in the statement, a notion similar to that produced by the classic banter phrase “How to face the problem if the problem’s your face?”

Precisely, how to save mankind when the problem’s mankind?

And let’s not even talk about all the usual issues like man-made pollution. No, let’s go a little closer, to boundaries we can actually reach.

Let’s talk about the following topic:

Park in China Closed ‘Cuz Tourists Anyhowly Took Away Its Lotus Flowers

Mankind shall save the Earth? They can’t even save a park because of mankind.

Park in China Closed ‘Cuz Tourists Anyhowly Took Away Its Lotus Flowers

According to AsiaOne, an ecological park in southwest China has been forced to close for the rest of the year.

And it’s because hundreds of tourists have been stripping it of its celebrated lotus flowers.

Forcefully.

Longqiao Cultural and Ecological Park in Sichuan province’s Lu county has not been open since late March for watercourse construction but was due to reopen soon.

The park’s renowned for its vast fields of lotus flowers that cover around 250,000 square metres (62 acres), an area larger than New York’s grand central station.

Since the start of the summer blossom season last month, however, plans to reopen the eco-park have been forcefully shoved aside after hundreds of people broke into the park to pick the flowers.

“We cannot control the tourists. We can just guarantee we’ve done our job well. We’ve put notes on the park gate and near the flower field and we have security personnel on patrol as well,” a member of staff said.

Adding that the construction work in the park was almost finished, the staff member expressed that there was no point reopening because the flowers were virtually all gone.

Huge criticism

Even till this day, around two to three hundred people a day are still believed to be breaking into the park, a manoeuvre which has forced management to increase the number of security patrols, in a bid to ensure their safety.

Videos and pictures of people picking lotus flowers have been spread online as well, and Netizens have been largely disapproving.

“Even the highest fence cannot stop those without manners. It’s like you can never wake up a person that pretends to sleep,” one Weibo user commented.

“Only penalties can stop these greedy people,” said another.

Well, that’s mankind for you, peeps.

Oh, the irony.