YUNNAN, China – It takes three hours of hiking along rock stairs and muddy walkways to reach Boluo Temple in the Chinese city of Dali where, by some accounts, monks have lived since as early as the Tang Dynasty.

For more than a thousand years, devout inhabitants of the temple have practised their beliefs in the prayer hall near the mountain peak, collected water from snow-melt and sourced nearly all of their heating needs by burning fallen branches. At least until recently.