A 2011 Ministry of Ecology and Environment directory does not describe Tongguling simply as a mountain viewpoint. It lists a 4,400-hectare national-level marine and coastal reserve in Wenchang, established in 1983, with coral reefs, tropical monsoon dwarf forest and wildlife as its protected subjects. The protected area joins mountain vegetation, wildlife and coral-reef habitat within one marine-and-coastal reserve. A later provincial profile calls Tonggu Mountain the “No.1 peak in eastern Hainan,” a popular description that catches the rise of the mountain but not the full scope of the reserve.
From the journal
The Mountain Inside the Boundary
Tongguling’s reserve record joins coral, dwarf forest and wildlife to a documented dispute over how protected land was used.
In the same city · Wenchang ↗The reserve reaches beyond a summit
The line on the map became a public issue
A 2018 government rectification plan records a conflict between that protected status and tourism development. It says 1,333 hectares of the reserve’s land area had been placed inside an ecotourism development zone; within that, it identifies core and buffer areas. The document goes on to describe land-use planning changes and projects built from 2013 onward, including a hotel, an exhibition centre and a road. These are findings and claims in a dated official plan, not a present-day site survey. Their importance is that they make the boundary concrete: a reserve line could be altered in planning documents, and construction could follow.
A forest road and the cost of development
The plan reports that 5.5 hectares of forest land were occupied for a tourism road and that 8.6 hectares of coastal shelter forest were damaged by listed projects. It names government departments that had approved projects in the reserve and sets a target to remove noncompliant development, restore the ecological environment and correct planning approvals. That record changes the usual mountain story. The road is not merely a way up; in the official account, it is evidence in a dispute about what a protected place is allowed to become. The rectification plan recorded these figures as part of its account of conditions at Tongguling.
A deadline is not proof of completion
The rectification document set a February 2018 deadline for Tongguling protected-area land to leave the international ecotourism development zone and directed a comprehensive cleanup of unlawful construction. The plan set a February 2018 deadline for removing protected land from the tourism zone and ordered cleanup of unlawful construction. It records the authorities’ remedy at that time; later conservation work belongs to a newer chapter of the reserve’s history.