The fate of Qinghai Lake bears witness to the saying that man
will conquer nature, said a scientist from the Chinese Academy of
Sciences?(CAS) on
August 9. To have a harmonious relationship with nature, people
must adapt to it, and respect the law of development, the scientist
added.
In early August, a scientific research team composed of
scientists from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the CAS,
and the State Forestry Administration conducted a joint
investigation into the environmental situation at Qinghai Lake.
From their findings, scientists concluded that they couldn't
confirm how long the natural beauty of the lake would last with its
ecology worsening every year.
Preliminary investigation results showed that in the past 30
years, water levels had dropped 3.7 meters and it had shrunk by 312
square kilometers, the main body of the lake splitting into smaller
lakes.
The lake, located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau 3,260 meters
above sea level, measures 4,400 square kilometers. It is the
largest inland saltwater lake in China. The plateau region is a
state-level natural reserve and is home to 213 species of wild
animals and 445 plants. Grassy marshlands, wetlands, brush and
dunes, together with fish, birds and beasts make up the region's
very special biological system.
In 1992, the lake was added to the Ramsar List of Wetlands of
International Importance.
The lake maintains ecological bio-diversity of the northeast
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and is considered a natural protective screen
to?prevent an easterly movement of the desertification
process.
However, the combination of global warming and human activities
since the 1900s has destroyed the lake's natural environment,
slowly but surely.
Desertification is also an issue. Deserted areas now measure
124,279 hectares, and continue to enlarge at an annual rate of
nearly 2,000 hectares. The area of high quality grasslands has
dropped from 2 million hectares in the 1950s to 1.09 million
hectares today.
Fishing resources are being exhausted, too. In the last few years,
the number of
Gymnocypris przewalskii, a rare species of
carp in the lake, has dropped to about 7,500 tons, only 10 percent
of what it was 40 years ago.
Rare animals are also facing extinction. There are 37 kinds of
wild animals under state first- and second-level protection in the
region, 15 to 20 percent of which face extinction. There are fewer
than 300 Procapra przewalskit, a rare antelope, left in the
wild.
Yin Hong, an expert in the study of wetlands with the State
Forestry Administration, said that the primitive ecological
environmental system has been totally changed by human
activities.
Large-scale agricultural development in the region that started
in mid-1950s transformed 50,025 hectares of grassland into
farmland, Yin said. A second round of development in the 1980s and
into the 90s saw the establishment of six state-owned farms and the
further cultivation of 23,350 hectares of precious grassland.
The human population around the lake has increased from about
20,000 in the 1950s to more than 90,000 today.
With areas of farmland needing irrigation increasing
progressively, the region's original inhabitants -- wild animals,
plants, fish -- have to vie with people for water.
To irrigate the farmlands, dams were constructed in most of the
rivers in the region. Half a century ago, there were 108 rivers
acting as water sources to the lake. Today, there are only 40,
including the Habu and Shaliu rivers. Water sources provide 20
percent less than they did 20 years ago.
Reduced water supplies and levels have resulted in higher salt
concentrations in the lake, according to Qinghai's
provincial water resource bureau. In 1962, the salt content of the
lake was 12.49 grams per liter. Now, that figure has increased to
16 grams per liter. The average pH has increased from 9.0 to more
than 9.2, or even 9.5 in some areas. Its alkalinity is even higher
than that of the sea. The change of water quality poses a great
threat to the lake's ecology, according to the bureau.
Government efforts to rejuvenate the lake region
In 2001, provincial authorities implemented a policy of "people
retreating and lake advancing," and allocated several hundred
million yuan to reforestation, desertification harnessing, natural
grassland recovery, soil fertility, ecological diversity
protection, eco-tourism, and fish resource recovery, Vice Governor
Li Jincheng said.
To reduce the pressure from people and livestock on the natural
environment, the provincial government took "ecological migration"
measures and transferred herdspeople to cities and towns to engage
in tertiary industries. Local governments were tasked with
providing these immigrants with living allowances for 10 to 20
years. Herdspeople who weren't uprooted were advised to switch from
open grazing to pen-rearing their livestock.?
To date, 160,080 hectares of land have been reforested, and 1.47
million hectares of degenerating grasslands have been
recovered.
In a bid to replenish fish resources, local governments
prohibited fishing in the lake in the 1980s. In 1997, a fish farm
was started and 15 million artificially bred Gymnocypris
przewalskii fries have been released to the lake since
then.
In 2003, the Regulation (Draft) on the Ecological Environmental
Protection in the Qinghai Lake Reaches, the first for a nature
reserve, was implemented.
Vice Governor Li said that after years of effort, parts of the
region's ecology has improved, but the deterioration continues.
There is a Comprehensive Harnessing Plan for Ecological and
Environmental Protection of the Qinghai Lake Reaches and Areas that
has passed preliminary examination and appraisal of experts, but
has yet to be approved.
The plan has identified 52,700 square km of land for harnessing
over the next 10 years, with an investment of 6.89 billion yuan
(about US$850.62 million), Li said.
(China.org.cn by Li Jingrong, September 7, 2005)
