Wetlands in the Yellow River Basin will have the strictest protection system

The reporter learned from the 2015 annual meeting of the Yellow River Wetland Protection Network held in Inner Mongolia a few days ago that in the future, wetlands in the Yellow River basin will implement the strictest protection system and strive to keep the existing wetlands in nine provinces and regions in the Yellow River basin from being reduced.

According to reports, the area of wetlands in the Yellow River basin is 3.9292 million hectares, with a wet land rate of 4.88 percent. Among them, the protected wetland area is 2.3257 million hectares, with a protection rate of 59.19%. Many wetlands in the Yellow River basin attract many birds to inhabit because of their good ecological environment. In the Hulunbuir grassland, the Hulun Lake wetland, known as the "kidney of the prairie," a large number of birds such as white-pillowed cranes inhabit and breed every year (photo, photo by our reporter Wu Yong).

However, for a long time, wetland protection in the Yellow River basin has been faced with some problems, such as the superposition of water shortage and water quality deterioration, the degradation of wetland ecosystem function in the source and upper reaches of the Yellow River, the shrinking area of natural wetlands in the middle and lower reaches, the decline of ecological carrying capacity and so on. Wetland protection and management is still weak.

In this regard, the relevant person in charge of the State Forestry Administration proposed that the protection and restoration of wetlands in the Yellow River basin must proceed from the key element of water resources and properly deal with the relationship between economic and social development and ecological protection in the basin. According to the plan, nine provinces (regions) in the Yellow River basin will take unified action to carry out wetland protection and restoration, and gradually solve outstanding problems such as wetland reclamation, unreasonable engineering construction, pollution, overgrazing and so on.