21/04/2005– Provincial
governors and key ministers from China’s water,
environment, forest and agriculture sectors
in the Yangtze River basin met to develop
a common strategy and action plan for protecting
the entire basin.
Participants attending the Yangtze Forum,
which took place in Wuhan, China from 16–17
April, discussed sustainable ways to ensure
that the region’s development is not at the
expense of the health of the basin. WWF, which
has collaborated with the Chinese government
since 1980 in the conservation of the Yangtze
River basin, is a key initiator and supporter
of the Forum.
"This gathering will give all those
involved in managing Yangtze resources a chance
to go beyond their sectoral or local concerns
and interests and work together to balance
conservation with development in the entire
river basin," said Li Lifeng, WWF China
Freshwater and Marine Programme Officer.
From its source on the Tibetan Plateau to
its mouth in East China Sea, the Yangtze encompasses
a variety of ecosystems – from mountains,
grasslands, and forest to marshlands, lakes
and streams – all of which are increasingly
being impacted by developments such as roads,
dams, factories and cities.
With a length of 6,378km, the Yangtze River
is the world’s third longest river. Its basin,
covering 1.8 million km2, is home to about
one third of the Chinese population – more
than 420 million people – and is the habitat
of the giant panda, Siberian crane, leopard
and Yangtze River dolphin.
Forty per cent of China’s freshwater resources
– more than 70 per cent of rice, 40 per cent
of grain and 40 per cent of China’s GDP –
are the direct result of the Yangtze River.
Finding a balance between socio-economic
development and environmental needs is an
ever-increasing challenge. Dams and thousands
of kilometres of dykes have already cut off
the river links to lakes, which once formed
a complex wetland network fulfilling important
natural functions such as spawning and feeding
for fish. Intensive land reclamation has created
agricultural and urban settlements on former
floodplains and lakes.
In the past 50 years, more than 800 lakes
have been lost due to reclamation. There has
been a 75 per cent decline in fisheries, and
73 per cent of the basin’s pollution – an
annual waste discharge of about 25 billion
tons – is dumped in the main river course,
affecting drinking water for more than 500
cities. Severe flooding is now an almost annual
event with thousands of lives lost and economic
losses worth more than US$70 billion in the
last 15 years.
‘With China set to become an economic goliath,
the launch of the Yangtze Forum is a crucial
moment in history," said Jamie Pittock,
Director of WWF’s Global Freshwater Programme.
"It offers a chance for the best pay-off
of any economic development – the protection
of irreplaceable natural resources such as
wetlands and rivers.”
At the conclusion of the Forum, participants
signed the Yangtze Declaration, demonstrating
their consensus on the urgent need to sustainably
develop the Yangtze basin.
As the next step, key ministers, with technical
guidance from WWF, will take the lead in developing
a master plan for the integrated management
of Yangtze resources. The Hunan provincial
government has also agreed to host the 2nd
Yangtze Forum in 2006.
WWF is demonstrating and advocating the integrated
management of the Yangtze, finding a way to
work with, rather than against, the river.
It has been working at both the policy level
and in the field towards restoration of the
balance of nature and people in the central
Yangtze since the 11000s.
Notes for editors:
• A main component of the solution being
put forward by WWF in China is integrated
river basin management (IRBM), which aims
to promote better management and preservation
of water resources, the ecosystem and biodiversity
within river basins, while improving the environmental
quality and living standard of people. WWF
co-funded the IRBM Task Force with the China
Council for International Cooperation on Environment
and Development (CCICED), a high level international
advisory board to the Chinese government.
• WWF is also working on the ground in the
Yangtze basin to promote a more sustainable
approach to river management. In Hubei Province,
the WWF-HSBC Yangtze Programme is working
with local authorities to re-establish natural
connections between wetlands and the Yangtze
in order to restore the area’s ‘web of life.’
A way has been devised to re-introduce water
and fish fry into the wetland area. The floodgates
of a dam, the sole function of which was once
to prevent and drain off floods, will now
be opened seasonally, taking into account
the fish breeding season and allowing fish
to flow into the wetlands from the Yangtze.The
programme is also introducing alternative
fishing in Zhangdu Lake and Lake Hong. These
two lakes were heavily degraded due to intensive
fish and crab farming, fish nets, and polders.
By restoring aquatic plants in the lakes,
water quality has significantly improved and
the highly endangered Oriental white stork
has returned for the first time in ten years.
• WWF is also working with farmers in the
Dongting and Poyang Lake wetlands to develop
alternative livelihoods, new land use and
flood management approaches to realize an
eco-system-based approach to the Yangtze Basin.
• The WWF report, Rivers at Risk, identifies
the top 21 rivers at risk from dams being
planned or under construction. It shows that
over 60 per cent of the world’s 227 largest
rivers have been fragmented by dams, which
has led to the destruction of wetlands, a
decline in freshwater species - including
river dolphins, fish, and birds, and the forced
displacement of tens of millions of people.
The report highlights the Yangtze as the river
at most risk with 46 large dams planned or
under construction.
• Chinese government support for wetland
conservation was demonstrated with the approval
of the Wetland Conservation Project Plan in
April 2004. Under the plan, the Chinese government
committed that by 2030, 90 per cent of natural
wetlands will be effectively protected, the
amount of Ramsar sites (wetlands of international
importance) will be increased from 30 to 80,
and the amount of national wetlands nature
reserves should be increased from 353 to 713.
