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First Yangtze Estuary Biological Recovery Project Starts
An aquatic biological recovery project has been initiated in this east China economic powerhouse, to combat damage caused by the construction of a large deep-water navigation channel in the Yangtze River Estuary.
Shanghai started the 50-km-long and 12.5-m-deep channel at the river mouth in 1998 to help it meet its target of becoming an international navigation hub. The ongoing project on the largest river in China is expected to take eight years and cost 12.3 billion yuan.
In order to control negative effects which might be caused by the construction to the vulnerable biological conditions at the river estuary, the Yangtze Estuary Deep-Water Channel Construction Co. Ltd, the project undertaker, has teamed up with the Shanghai- based Donghai Aquatic Research Institute under the China Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS) in the ecological recovery project.
The natural abundance of the river estuary had already been hurt by excessive fishing and pollution. It used to be an ideal reproduction habitat and migration passageway for endangered species, such as Japanese eels, Chinese sturgeons, white sturgeons and cowfish.
Chen Yaoqu, a professor with CAFS, said that the organization's monitoring showed that the all-round ecology at the estuary is declining. The biodiversity index of plankton dropped from 93 in 1982 to 29 in 1998, and the number of bottom feeders in the estuary has also decreased sharply. Many aquatic species are on the verge of extinction.
The new ecological project plans to improve the amount of nutrition for aquatic produce in the river by releasing diversified organisms. Some five to 10 tons of such organisms are to be released soon. Ecological appraisals have been conducted in the construction areas.
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