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Water Project Launched to Protect Rare Cranes
China officially launched its first campaign to supply water to an important but shrinking wetland area Thursday in an effort to protect hundreds of endangered red-crowned cranes inhabiting the Zhalong National Nature Reserve.
Friday's China Daily said that the water transfer project will supply the reserve in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province with 35 million cubic meters of fresh water from the neighboring Jiangdong Irrigation Project before this winter.
The 210,000-ha reserve has 60 percent of its coverage being wetland, which is the largest of its kind in China for endangered waterfowl species. It was put on the International Important Marsh list in 1992 but is now close to drying up.
Local water authorities are planning to invest 40 million yuan (4.8 million U.S. dollars) in future water-supply projects over the next three to five years, which would expand the natural reserve's core area from the present 130 to some 600 square kilometers.
There are only 15 varieties of red-crowned cranes with a combined population of some 2,000 left in the world. Nine of the varieties reside in China and six of those, number 346 in total, could until recently be exclusively found in the Zhalong Reserve.
Suo Lisheng, China's vice-minister of water resources, said recently that he hopes the province's water transfer project can improve the survival environment for all the wetland's endangered species.
Suo said that China will optimize the existing water resources in the year ahead. While ensuring water supply for the country's human inhabitants, the government will also use water to improve the country's environment in the future.
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