This year, Harbin City, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has released more than 11 million artificially-bred fish fry in the Songhua River, to protect fish resources and the environment.

Songhua, 1,900 km in length, is the largest tributary of the Heilong River. The water quality of the river has deteriorated due to increasingly serious pollution, reducing the number of fish varieties from 78 to about 30.

Since 1991, when 100,000 fry were put into Songhua, a total of 34.76 million have been released in the river.

Local companies and religious groups have joined the government fisheries department in the program.

(Xinhua News Agency August 3, 2002)