Chinese lawmakers, who are currently in Beijing for an annual session of the Ninth National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature, have called for intensified efforts to protect the environment along the Yangtze, China's largest river, urged a coordinate development of environment and economy in the area.

They are of the opinion that efforts should be made to protect soil and water along the river's upper reaches while carrying out an overall development plan in the middle and downstream areas.

The Yangtze River, a link between the developed eastern provinces and underdeveloped western areas, has often been flooded in summer, but it has low water flow in winter, said Li Zongqi, president of the Changjiang Shipping Co. Group, warning that it sounds an "alarming bell" to the regional economy in the Yangtze River valley, where there are top industrial cities like Shanghai and Wuhan in the country.

Severe pollution has greatly endangered the existence of rare aquatic species, and resulted in deluges and deteriorating environment for human life and production, according to Sun Zhigang, secretary of the City Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of Yichang, Hubei Province, who also said that the mammoth Three Gorges Dam Project area is also facing a pollution threat.

The deputies are very appreciative of what Premier Zhu Rongji has said in his government work report that "greater efforts will be made in implementing the government-backed programs to protect primitive forests in the upper and middle reaches of both Yangtze and Yellow rivers by returning farmland to forests or grassland." They are also unanimous in the view that it is the best plan to improve the environment of the Yangtze River area.

The deteriorating environment and outmoded means of production have been the major factors that cause the worsening of environment in the Yangtze river area, said Professor Tian Dalun, of the Zhongnan (Central-south) Forestry Institute. The government programs to curb land erosion in the Yangtze River valley epitomizes the government's resolve to tackle the problem completely.

Those farmers, whose farmland will return to forests, pastures or lakes, should be helped and assisted to eke out a new means of production in compliance with requirements of the environment, she noted.

According to official figures, Hunnan Province, a main beneficiary of the programs, has returned over 350 sq. km. of reclaimed land back to the lakes in the past year.

The deputies also urged to enact specific laws on environmental protection in the Yangtze River area and set up and improve the managerial system pertaining to the protection of water resources of the Yangtze in a bid to resolve foreseeable water shortage in the new century.