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Canadian Company to Restore Wetlands in Northeast China
A Canada-based environment development corporation, RAGA, has vowed to invest 8.4 million US dollars in a loan from the Asian Development Bank to conserve the wetlands in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China.
The program will be launched in August this year to protect a wetland corridor along the middle and lower reaches of Heilongjiang, the boundary river between China and Russia, and to restore the desolate marsh along the middle and lower reaches of the Songhua River.
As a reward, RAGA is entitled to develop tourism in designated areas in the province.
Heilongjiang Province claims to have about 2.7 million hectares of wetlands, which account for 10.8 percent of China's total wetlands.
More than two thirds of Heilongjiang's wetlands are situated in the plain areas along the middle and lower reaches of the Heilong, Songhua and Wusuli Rivers.
Excessive cultivation has reduced the marshland area by 2.5 million hectares on the Sanjiang Plain, the plain between the Songhua, Nenjiang and Heilong rivers in the northeast of Heilongjiang Province.
The local government banned any cultivation and excavation in 1999 to curb the worsening wetland situation.
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