China urges efforts for lake protection, rehabilitation

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:28:25 +0000

Chinese senior officials on Monday called for enhanced measures to curb lake pollution and facilitate lake rehabilitation at the 13th World Lake Conference that opened Monday in Wuhan, known as “the city of a hundred lakes”.
Chen Zhili, vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, called for greater legislative powers to stop lake water pollution and to prevent lakes from disappearing.
Chen called for the establishment of special lake protection laws and regulations and implementation of strict judicial and administrative means in the management and supervision of industrial, agricultural and household waste, especially that of highly-contaminating facilities such as paper mills and chemical plants.
Lakes, a key element in sustaining ecological balance, remained fragile in the face of rapid industrial growth and increasing human activities, which led to serious contamination and shrinkage that in turn threatened people’s living environment, she said.
China has more than 24,800 natural lakes. However, an average of 20 lakes disappeared every year, and about 88.6 percent of the lakes are in eutrophic state, she said.
Hubei Province, once known as “a province with 1,000 lakes,” currently has 2,438 square kilometers of lakes, or about 34 percent of the total in the 1950s.
The shrinkage of water area, water pollution and the degradation of ecological functions are the major problems threatening worldwide lakes and bringing direct impact on people’s lives and production activities.
Efforts must be taken to further restructure economic development and to eradicate outdated production methods that consumed enormous natural resources and produced massive waste, a main challenge to the fresh water ecological system, she said.
People should have a correct understanding of ecological characteristics of lakes, based on which industries and development scale by the lakeside are determined, she said.

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China urges efforts for lake protection, rehabilitation