The ban, which will become a regular annual activity, is designed to protect wildlife and resources on China's longest and the world's third longest river.

With a length of 6,300km, the Yangtze runs through Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai.

In Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, some 100km of Yangtze River waters will be forbidden for fishing. Local sources said the city has allocated 360,000yuan (US$43,373) to subsidize affected local fishermen.

Information from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture said the fishing ban on the Yangtze River, the first such operation on the mighty river, will extend to 4,251km long the river at different times.

The fishing ban on the upper reaches of Yangtze from southwest China's Yunnan Province to central China's Hubei Province is being carried out from February to April, while the ban on the lower reaches of the river from Hubei to east China's Shanghai, including that in Nanjing,will begin from April to June.

The river's annual catch of wild fish has fallen to about 100,000 tons a year, about one fourth of what Yangtze fishermen routinely caught in 1954. Its fishing output accounts for 60percent of the country's total freshwater fishing output, according to the ministry.

Since 1995 there has been an annual three-month fishing ban in the Yellow Sea, as well as the East and South China Seas.

(eastday.com March 28, 2002)