China takes multiple measures to protect the kidney of the Earth, wetland protection rate rises
River breeze, water birds, reeds, ripples…… At the Harbin Baiyupao Wetland, dyed with a stretch of green, photography enthusiast Liu Lingxu used his SLR camera to record the picturesque scenery along the Songhua River.
“Due to excessive human interference, Baiyupao was once left with only more than 100 hectares of wetland, and its ecology severely degraded.” Bai Liandi, director of the Wildlife Management Division of the Harbin Municipal Forestry Bureau, said that in 2008 Baiyupao established a national wetland park, and through continuous acquisition and wetland restoration, its area has now expanded to 284 hectares, and the functions of the shrinking wetland are gradually recovering.
On January 13, 2014, the results of the second national wetland resources survey organized by the State Forestry Administration were announced. China's total wetland area is 53.6 million hectares, with 23.24 million hectares of protected wetland, and the wetland protection rate has increased from 30% in the first national survey to 43%. At present, 18 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have issued provincial-level wetland protection regulations, and some places have also included wetland protection in the performance assessments of local Party and government leaders.
Heilongjiang Province, whose wetland area accounts for about one-tenth of the country's total, issued the "Decision on Strengthening Wetland Protection" in 1998, halting all reclamation activities and establishing nature reserves on a rescue basis. In August 2003, the Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress passed the "Heilongjiang Province Wetland Protection Regulations," explicitly requiring governments at all levels to incorporate wetland protection into national economic and social development plans and to arrange special funds for their use. Up to now, Heilongjiang Province has 8 wetlands of international importance, including Zhalong, Xingkai Lake and Dongfanghong, ranking first in the country; 85 wetland nature reserves and 41 wetland parks have been built, basically forming a wetland protection network covering the whole province.
Wang Renchun, director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Wetland Protection Management Center, said that the promulgation of the Regulations resolved the long-standing awkward situation of having no law to rely on, and wetland protection and construction have clearly accelerated.
Some cities have also carried out explorations and attempts in wetland protection. The Zhalong Reserve, China's largest breeding habitat for red-crowned cranes, suffered severe water shortages in the late 1990s, with serious vegetation degradation and frequent wildfires. To solve the water shortage, Heilongjiang Province began diverting water from the Nenjiang River into Zhalong in 2002, pioneering ecological water replenishment in China. This long-term water replenishment mechanism was subsequently fixed, replenishing an average of 250 million cubic meters of water to Zhalong each year.
In addition, Heilongjiang Province has continued to carry out the work of returning farmland to wetland. According to materials provided by the Heilongjiang Provincial Forestry Department, the Dajiahe Nature Reserve in Raohe County adopted methods such as severely cracking down on illegal reclamation and exchanging farmland inside the reserve for farmland outside it, returning more than 1,600 hectares of farmland to wetland, greatly improving the integrity of the wetland ecosystem. In 2013 alone, the area of farmland returned to wetland in the province exceeded 10,000 hectares, basically distributed among nature reserves and wetland parks at all levels.