Turquoise-blue waters and pristine, evergreen forests make Potatso National Park, in Yunnan province, a magnet for tourists from home and abroad. Photos by Chen Liang

Mainstream tourists have only just discovered the natural beauty of Shudu Lake in Shangri-La county, Diqing Tibet autonomous prefecture. The turquoise-blue waters and the pristine, evergreen forests are a sight to behold and for the past decade, local authorities have tried various ways to attract more visitors.

The biggest campaign occurred in 2001, when Zhongdian was renamed Shangri-La, after the fictional land in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote tourism in the area in northwestern Yunnan province.

But as the tourism campaign for the region began to take shape, disaster struck Shudu Lake in the most ironic way.

A private developer had started breeding several different kinds of exotic carp in the lake to attract more visitors, especially anglers. But the experiment backfired and wiped out the local fish in the lake. Today these native fish can only be found in the neighboring Bita Lake, another popular tourist destination.

The local government realized the damage that had been done and took action. The private developer's managerial authority was canceled and the two lakes have been upgraded into Potatso National Park, together with adjoining pastureland, mountains and forests.

In June last year, the 1,000-sq-km park, 22 km west of the town of Shangri-La, became China's first national park. "It's truly the first successful step of our efforts to introduce the concept of a national park into China," says Chen Jie, Yunnan program director of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), an international non-governmental conservation organization based in the United States. "It means Yunnan has started blending tourism development with nature protection."

The local government invited TNC to help plan a "biodiversity special zone" at another site in Diqing in 2004. The two sides held several meetings on ecotourism and reserve managers toured national parks in the United States and New Zealand for ideas.