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China’s longest and most important river, the
Yangtze, is under serious pressure from human activity with long
stretches of it in “critical condition,” state media reported
Sunday.
The first annual report on the
health of the Yangtze has found that massive amounts of pollution
dumped into the river were taking a serious toll on its aquatic
life, the Beijing News reported.
More than 600 kilometers of the
6200-kilometer river are in critical condition, beset by pollution,
excessive damming and too much surface traffic on the country’s
most important inland waterway, it quoted the paper report as
saying.
Nearly 30 percent of major
tributaries are seriously polluted. A comprehensive management
system needed to be put in place to prevent the situation worsening,
it said.
“The impact of human activities
on the Yangtze water ecology is largely irreversible,” said Yang
Guishan, a researcher with the Nanjing Institute of Geography and
Limnology and one of the chief editors of the report, in comments
quoted by official Xinhua news agency.
“It’s a pressing job to
regulate such activities in all the Yangtze drainage areas and
promote harmonious development of man and nature.”
The report said the river’s
annual harvest of aquatic products had plummeted from 427,000 tons
in the 1950s to about 100,000 tons in the 1990s, Xinhua said.
A separate study had found that
cities along the river discharged at least 14.2 billion tons of
polluted water every year, 42 percent of China’s total, it said.
Rare species such as the
white-flag dolphin were thought to be on the verge of extinction,
but even more common species such as carp were gasping for survival,
the report said.
The report, compiled by the
Nanjing Institute, the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission and
the Worldwide Fund for Nature, also warned of higher flood risks
despite the presence of the massive Three Gorges Dam, as more
extreme weather linked to global warming hits China.
The Yangtze accounts for about 35
percent of China’s total fresh water resources.
The report also said that the
Three Gorges Dam project has created a huge reservoir seriously
polluted by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage from passenger boats.
--AFP
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