NPC Deputy Urges Protection of Pearl River

A National People's Congress (NPC) deputy from south China's Zhuang Autonomous Region, said he will submit a motion to the 3rd Annual Session of the 9th NPC as he is filled with anxiety for deteriorating bioenvironmental conditions along the Pearl River, China's third largest which runs through the region where he lives.

In his proposal, Yang Caishou will suggest greater efforts be made for the protection of bioenvironment along the river, and that local poverty-stricken population be financed by the government for returning some of their farmland to forests. Environmental conditions along the Pearl River delta, with south China's largest industrial city of Guangzhou as the center, have been increasingly deteriorating due to bustling human activities. Timber felling went rampant in his home town and forests gave way to reclaimed farmland, which had caused severe soil erosion and frequent flooding.

To halt unrestricted tree-cutting is the basis for protecting local environment but, to curb rampant deforestation has to rely on the efforts to resolving the problems of feeding and clothing local needy fellow farmers in the area where the river rises, Yang noted.

According to the NPC deputy, Baise and Hechi prefectures are major source areas for the river, where there are 19 abject poverty-stricken counties with a combined population of over 7.3 million needy people, and 85 of whom belong to ethnic minority groups, who have only an average of 0.07 ha of cultivated land per person.

Yang suggests the central government pay great attention to bioenvironmental problems in the river valley, adopt similar policies that have been worked out for the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow river areas, in a bid to end food shortage for local needy families and enable them to turn a new life after they return farmland to forests.

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