"The province has made marked progress in high-quality development," he said.

Since the term "rise of the central region" first appeared in the Government Work Report delivered by then premier Wen Jiabao in 2004, the country's central leadership has attached increasingly greater importance to the term.

While presiding over a work symposium on the rise of the central region in May last year, President Xi Jinping called for efforts to enhance the comprehensive strength and competitiveness of the country's central region and to make new advances in the rise of the region.

He made an eight-point instruction on the development of the region, which consisted of facilitating high-quality growth in the manufacturing industry, enhancing innovation capability in key fields, improving the business environment, undertaking the planning and transfer of emerging industries, expanding high-level opening-up, sticking to green development, improving people's livelihoods, and optimizing policies and institutions.

As the region forges ahead in its rise, green development has been integrated into the governing strategies of local governments, even in areas that have just been lifted out of poverty and require industrial development to boost their economies.

"As long as a project has environmental hazards, we will say no to it without even holding any discussions," said Jiang Chunsheng, county head of Yuexi in Anhui.

Jiang said the county will not even give the green light to wind power generation projects－generally regarded as environmentally friendly－because the construction of roads will be needed in such projects.

As discovered in one project more than a decade ago, new road construction to move windmills and other facilities may cause damage to vegetation in many mountainous areas.

"Investment from a single wind power generation project can be more than 1 billion yuan, or even 2 billion yuan. But we suffered damage to our ecological system in the previous project, so we will never bring in such a project again," he said.

Xia Mingfu, county head of Xinxian in Henan province, also said ecological protection is the top concern of the county government when it seeks investment.

With forest coverage rates of more than 76 percent, both Xinxian and Yuexi managed to be taken off the national list of poverty-stricken areas in 2018.

Industrial projects brought into the counties should be in line with their green development path. "First of all, they cannot be in conflict with ecological protection. Nor can they be energy intensive," Xia said.

The Xinxian county government has recently declined a steel project that was expected to bring in fiscal revenue of 80 to 100 million yuan.

"We insist on carrying out ecological assessment for any development project. If they fail the assessment, we would rather not take it," he said.

The county has also been stepping up efforts to make full use of its superior ecological environment while protecting it.

Aside from establishing a center to help promote local agricultural products on the internet, the county government has introduced a guideline to help promote the development of agriculture with local characteristics.

Loan guarantees and subsidized loans are offered to farmers to facilitate the development of agritourism and local produce including camellia oil and tea.

"Xinxian's green resources are gifts from nature. We have a responsibility to protect them as we use them," Xia said.

"Though we may fail to bring in some industrial projects because of environmental concerns, I believe we will ultimately benefit from this green development path."

Zhu Lixin in Hefei contributed to the story.