"Endless cries of monkeys echo across the Three Gorges when a light
boat takes you through folded mountains and hills."
This vivid scene reflected in an ancient Chinese poem can once
again be witnessed at the Three Gorges after a silence of several
decades.
"Tourists can hear again the cries of monkeys when visiting the
Three Gorges," said Huang Jin, a 28-year-old tourist guide from
Wushan County, site of one of the gorges.
"I
rarely saw monkeys here when I started my career as tourist guide
in 1994," she said. "But now you can hear the cries of monkeys
everywhere in the gorges."
Kong Xiangjian, a tourist from Beijing said the cries reminded him
of the poem written by renowned ancient Chinese poet Li Bai.
According to textual research by zoologists, the Three Gorges was
inhabited by a large number of monkeys since ancient times, but
increasing human activities and the random felling of trees since
the beginning of last century have made monkeys a rare sight.
The construction of the Three Gorges Hydropower Project has again
drawn people's attention to the ecological environment in the
reservoir areas.
It
has been the most important task for local authorities to protect
the biodiversity in the Three Gorges, according to Shui Hua, deputy
director of the Wushan Administration located at one of the Three
Gorges.
To
cultivate a favorable ecological environment, Wushan County set up
a special forest administration station and launched a series of
moves to protect and expand vegetation.
The county has resolutely banned felling of trees and widely
planted bamboo and various kinds of trees along the gorges. In
addition, the county has moved to higher places a large number of
rare trees that would have been submerged by storing water of the
reservoir.
The number of monkeys in the Three Gorges has now developed to
nearly 10,000 from only a few hundred in the mid-1980s, said Shui,
adding that the county gives out more than 40 tons of corn annually
to the monkeys as additional food.
Besides heavy vegetation and the reappearance of monkeys in the
Three Gorges, a great number of other water birds have appeared
again, the official noted.
The vegetation protection in Wushan is only part of the overall
ecological protection drive in the Three Gorges reservoir areas,
Shui said.
More than 80 percent of the reservoir areas are under the
jurisdiction of Chongqing Municipality, which has managed to
enhance its forest coverage rate to the present 25 percent from
10.3 percent recorded years ago.
(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2003)