A law to protect the Yangtze: China's largest river suffocated by pollution
The Yangtze River is the longest in China, but also one of the most polluted.
Here, men bathe there near the city of Wuhan on December 7, 2020. REUTERS - Aly Song
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
It is the longest river in China and it is also one of the most polluted.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing adopted a law on Saturday, December 26 to protect the Yangtze.
The text, the first to protect a waterway in the country, is due to enter into force next March and attempts to ensure "green development" of the "blue river".
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
For conservationists, the river was on fire, and this bill is the first to protect a waterway in China.
As the name suggests in Chinese,
Chang Jiang
is the longest river in the country, the third in the world by length after the Amazon and the Nile - or
6
300 km from the Tibetan plateau
and flows into the East China Sea - but it is also one of the most threatened.
In order to
preserve the biodiversity of the Yang-Tsé-Kiang
, a ten-year fishing ban was decreed in early 2020. In less than a year, more than 230,000 fishermen were forced to retrain in the 19 Chinese provinces and autonomous municipalities that the "
mother of rivers
" and its tributaries irrigate, according
to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture published in early December
.
But that does not solve the problems of
industrial
pollution, but
the Yang-Tsé-Kiang provides a third
of the water resources
of the country of China and it also receives more than
40
% of wastewater discharges
.
Overexploited,
riddled with dams
and providing three-fifths of the country's hydroelectric reserves, the Yangtze must rest.
Sand extraction will be "
severely limited
" in the river basin, the relocation of chemical factories far from its banks should also accelerate,
reports the state press in
order to ensure "
green development
" of the "
blue river
" .
This, before
the opening in China of the COP 15 on biodiversity
, scheduled for May 17 to 30 in Kunming in the south of the country.
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