Polluted water flows into the Yangtze River from a stream in Jiangsu Province, China.[File picture]

When gynecologist Vishwas Yevale consigned his mother's ashes to India's Mutha River according to tradition, his family was more than unusually upset.

"My father frowned watching beside me and asked me to choose a clean river for him after his death," says Yevale.

Not wanting his own children to inherit filthy waterways, the 50-year-old founded the Mumbai-based non-profit Jal Dindi Organization to clean up waterways for the next generation.

At the World Lake Conference, which closed in central China's Wuhan city Thursday, Yevale agreed with Chinese environmentalists that governments must urgently enlist public support in river conservation.

Jal Dindi organizes sailing trips on contaminated areas and youth camps to raise awareness of environmental protection and health issues, as well as mobilizing Buddhist monks to help villagers to clean the environment.

"The purpose of all these is to let people understand that environment protection is a duty of everyone and it's deeply rooted in the culture and tradition. We must mend the huge gap between government policies to grassroot activities and mobilize public actions," Yevale said.

"China and India share similar economic and social problems, and our measures might be of some help in mobilizing grassroot populations to tackle pollution with passion," he said.

Wang Hao, academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, agreed it was important to promote a broader involvement of all people living in river valleys or lake basins.

"Improvement of public awareness and sound collaboration between government, residents, farmers and industry are basic requirements for effective implementation of integrated water pollution control," Wang said.

In China, he said, pollution came from a range of activities such as fish breeding, the release of sediment contaminants, invasive species within the lake waters, domestic sewage and industrial waste discharges, agricultural fertilizer, soil erosion and over-extraction.

Public education programs and campaigns could raise public awareness of water issues and promote environment-friendly lifestyles, he said.

Many people living around Honghu Lake, in central China's Hubei Province, have quit fish farming after huge amounts of chemical nutrients polluted the water.

"I earned nothing after a year's hard work and had to pay 200,000 yuan (29,300 U.S. dollars) in debt in 1997," said Wang Guicai, who set up his business in 1993.

"Too many people have moved here to farm fish since 1995, and the water quality has turned bad, which was disastrous for us," said Wang, 56.

Under the guidance of the local government, more people had quit fish farming and began to raise crabs, which "consumes fewer resources and produces less waste, but is more profitable," he said.

"We have realized that the lake is so important to our lives. It won't feed people if we don't take care of it."

Professor Erik Jeppesen, of the Department of Freshwater Ecology at Denmark's University of Aarhus, said, "People never understand the importance of pollution control until something drastic happens in the environment, like outbreaks of blue algae, or dying fish, or chemical contamination."

The public could participate in policy-making and implementation, challenge decisions by governments on water pollution control, and play their role in democratic supervision, Wang said.

He called for easier access to information to encourage public participation, and development of modern information platforms regarding freshwater quantity, quality and ecological information and pollution source databases.

"Raising the awareness of reducing waste discharges in daily life among children and local residents is a pressing task for the government," Chen Lei, China's Minister of Water Resources, said during the conference.

Improving awareness of environment protection and encouraging participation would guarantee lake rehabilitation, said Chen Zhili, vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

She called on the government to strengthen the propagation of lake protection and for every citizen concerned about lake environments to take part in the lake protection activities.