• According to WWF, the Yangtze River Basin is heading for climate disaster

With the entry of the year 2020, the Chinese will no longer be able to fish in the longest river in the country and third in the world, the Yangtze, since the Government has prohibited fishing activities in its waters for ten years to "protect biodiversity", Xinhua state agency reports Thursday.

As of New Year, the ban affects 332 protected areas of the river basin, but this year it must also be extended to all natural channels, tributaries and large lakes, according to the decision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

In waters not affected by these prohibitions, restrictions should also be imposed, although the scale and duration will be the decision of the provincial fishing authorities.

The decision, the official press explains, will affect more than 110,000 fishing vessels and 280,000 fishermen in the ten regions bathed by the Yangtze, and the authorities have promised aid for those who are forced to find new ways to make a living.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yu Kangzhen, said that this moratorium is "a key step to fight against the depletion of biological resources and the degradation of biodiversity" in the river, affected for many years by overfishing, pollution and the dams.

Official data shows that Yangtze today produces only 0.32% of China's freshwater products, since in recent years annual fishing has been less than 100,000 tons, when in the fifties there were more than 420,000 tons.

Among the species most affected by human activities is the Yangtze dolphin, extinct in 2006, or Chinese sturgeon, practically extinct in nature.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • China
  • science
  • Science and Health
  • Environment

CLIMATE CRISIS This is how tourism kills the planet: the economic challenges facing climate change

Climate crisis Climate Weather: Minister Celaá wants a subject on climate change

CienciaGreta Thunberg, at the Climate Summit in Madrid: "We have to educate adults about the climate"