China would be lucky to find a single healthy fish swimming in its coastal waters by 2011.
A Shrinking World Series
China’s wetlands, coral reefs and mangroves are rapidly disappearing: expert
According to a Chinese specialist, Luan Weixin, a professor at the Economics and Management College at Dalian Maritime University:
- About 50 percent of inland coastal wetlands in china have disapperaed because of excessive reclamation.
- Some 80 percent of coral reefs and mangrove forests had been destroyed over the past 50 years.
- Worst affected areas include estuaries of the Yangtze, Yellow and Zhujiang rivers, and water bodies near East Liaoning, Bohai and Hangzhou bays.
- A total of 145,000 square kilometers of shallow waters along China’s coast are substandard.
- Some 29,000 square kilometers of seawater is heavily contaminated by chemicals including fertilizers, which contain nitrogen and phosphate.
A child clears water from his boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, in east China’s Anhui province October 14, 2007. Blue-green algae has caused water pollution in Chaohu Lake, China’s fifth largest fresh water lake, where the rare whitebait production is on the decline, Xinhua News Agency reported. REUTERS/Jianan Yu (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!
“Over the past 20 years or so, China’s marine economy has been developing at a staggeringly rapid pace and marine resources are being widely tapped. As a result, the condition of China’s inshore environment is deteriorating and the ocean ecology has been seriously damaged,” he said. (Source)
A man carrying lotus roots walk through an algae-filled pond in Yingtan, east China’s Jiangxi province, October 12, 2007. China’s pollution woes will form the smoggy backdrop to a key Communist Party gathering in October as leaders, who long treated nature as a foe to conquer, now fear that dirty air and water threaten stability and growth. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA) CHINA OUT. Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!
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