Lingao Lighthouse, located in China's southernmost island province of Hainan, was awarded the title of "Heritage Lighthouse of the Year 2025" by the International Organization for Marine Aids to Navigation (IALA).
This marks the first time a Chinese lighthouse has received such international recognition since the establishment of this award in 2019, underscoring growing global acknowledgment of China's efforts in maritime heritage preservation.
Built in 1894, the 22-meter-tall lighthouse features a red-and-white striped cast-iron structure, making it the oldest modern lighthouse in Hainan.
Lingao Lighthouse is not only visually well-preserved but also plays an active role in the local community through its museum and educational programs - making it a model example of heritage lighthouse preservation and utilization, said Francis Zachariae, secretary-general of IALA.
"This lighthouse of the year, the Lingao lighthouse, is a fantastic example of how you combine an important Asian navigation with culture, history and also education of the generations to come. So they can see how important this system is for safety of navigation," he said.
Zachariae also praised China's consistent engagement in international lighthouse conservation through IALA. He highlighted China's active role in international collaboration, adding that Lingao Lighthouse, with its innovative educational models and exemplary conservation practices, provides valuable insights for the global community.
The award was presented during the IALA International Seminar on Heritage Lighthouse Conservation held in Haikou, provincial capital city of Hainan, on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
China's Lingao Lighthouse honored as IALA's "Heritage Lighthouse of the Year 2025"
A veteran agricultural scientist and deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, shared his decades-long mission to reduce the country's reliance on food imports and safeguard its food security by developing high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.
Gao Derong, a researcher from the Lixiahe Regional Institute of Agricultural Sciences in east China's Jiangsu Province, detailed his relentless pursuit of better wheat varieties while taking a question at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing "two sessions", a major event in China's political calendar.
He has dedicated more than 30 years to wheat breeding and succeeded in the fight against Fusarium head blight, a serious fungal disease of cereals, including wheat and other small-grain crops, by implanting "disease-resistant genes" inside seeds.
"After 30 years of countless and repeated trials, we finally developed our first Fusarium head blight resistant variety in 2021. It exhibits strong disease resistance and high yield, with a yield of up to 600 kg per mu (0.066 hectare) in a demonstration plot. This means farmers can use fewer pesticides, produce more wheats, and secure a more stable harvest," said Gao.
Addressing the tight rotation schedule in the rice-wheat rotation system in south China, his team developed time-smart varieties like "Yangmai 25," which can be sown as late as December and still achieve a yield of 6,00 kg per mu.
"We have also cultivated a high-quality weak-gluten wheat variety tailored for biscuits and pastries, reversing China's long-standing reliance on imports. These grain varieties, like elite guard teams, help us hold our rice bowl firmly and contribute to securing our food security," Gao said.
As an NPC deputy, Gao extends his research from the lab to the field, gathering farmers' concerns alongside experimental data.
"My duty as a deputy is also written in the fields. 'Can we construct high-standard farmland at an accelerated pace?' 'Can we have more targeted agricultural subsidies?' These are the voices I often heard in the fields, which I carefully recorded like experimental data and transformed into suggestions," he said. Gao said he will continue working to enable the land to yield more grain, help farmers increase their incomes, and contribute to ensuring national food security.
This year's "two sessions," the annual meetings of China's top political advisory body and national legislature, opened in Beijing Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. As the world's second-largest economy embarks on the inaugural year of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) period, these gatherings will serve both as a review of past achievements, and as a strategic compass guiding the nation's future development.
NPC deputy vows to fortify China's food security through seed innovation
