China Tackles Environment-damaged Longest Inland River

Many people have left their homes in the area along the dry lower reaches of the Tarim River, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, because the river no longer provides them with water for their farmland and daily life.

However, 95-year-old Ahmad Sayit of the Uygur nationality has stayed there. His family and their 50 sheep have been relying on well water to survive the serious drought.

Although there have been no water in the river course over the past 20 years, Ahmad Sayit believes that some day the river course will be full of water again, and everything there will be resumed the same as it was decades ago.

He has become more confident as a project launched by the Chinese government to divert water from nearby lakes into the river course is now under full swing.

Ahmad Sayit's is not the only family which stays there. Nine other families are also waiting for the coming back of water.

The 1,321-kilometer-long Tarim River, the longest inland river in China, runs from the west to the east along the northern verge of the Taklimakan Desert, the biggest moving desert in the country, and flows into the Taitema Lake in Xinjiang.

Due to the sharp increase in water use on the upper and middle reaches of the river, the river has become shorter and shorter. At present, 320 kilometers of the river below the Daxihaizi Reservoir, the current end of the river, has dried up.

Experts on water conservancy plan to divert water from the Bosten Lake, China's biggest inland fresh water lake which is 580 kilometers away, first into the Daxihaizi Reservoir, and then into the lower reaches of the Tarim River, said Zhang Fawang, director of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Bureau for Management of Tarim River.

This project can water at least 100 kilometers of the lower reaches of the Tarim River, according to an engineer from the bureau.

Other projects, involving 200 million yuan (20.09 million US dollars), will include building a 800-kilometer-long dyke and more than 60 water gates along the middle reaches of the Tarim River.

Zhu Xiangming, deputy director of the regional water conservancy bureau, said the regional government is drafting a program on harnessing the Tarim River. The plan, to be completed within three years, covers ecological protection, development of agriculture, animal husbandry and aquatic production, flood-proof projects, water and soil conservation and utilization of water energy. The total investment will be more than 2 billion yuan (240 million U.S. dollars).

The Tarim River has for a long time irrigated the towns and oasises in the river valley area, which is a major production base of quality cotton, pears and apricots in China.

However, an investigation by the Xinjiang Ecological and Geological Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences shows that some 80 percent of the poplar trees in the area have died out due to water shortages and excessive lumbering over the past 50 years.

In the past two decades, a total of 33,333 hectares of forested land were changed into farmland, according to the investigation.

Now, all activities which may deteriorate local environment have been prohibited in the area.

More over, the regional government has decided to turn 200,000 hectares of cotton fields back into forestry of fruit trees within three years.

Government's efforts to harness the river has won strong support from the public.

Forty-five-year-old Lu Xiaoshun, together with his wife and son, have given up comfortable urban life and settled down in the desert in the Tarim River valley. They have built houses and started planting trees and grass.

Like Lu's, more than 70 families have also settled down in the desert river valley for planting trees and grass, hoping to turn the desert into a big green village.

Local government has adopted a series of measures to safeguard local environment. These measures include encouraging local farmers to use water-saving techniques, and restricting development of new farmland to save water sources.

Meanwhile, activities stimulating people to donate money for planting trees and grass in the region are also going on smoothly.

The World Bank and the Canadian Government have built ecology protection projects in the Tarim River valley.

The Tarim River is expected to flow again into the Taitema Lake, its original destination, by 2020, local officials said.



People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/