Cheng Chishui's name is taken from Chihu Lake, near which his home was situated.

The 51-year-old fisherman has spent most of his life in the place where he was born, near the lake, in Lianshan Village in the city of Ruichang, in east China's Jiangxi Province.

To him, Chihu Lake has vital significance. It is not just that the lake provides his livelihood. The whole of his life has been firmly and deeply connected with the lake, one of the major freshwater lakes in Jiangxi.

He remembers that when he was a child the lake was a paradise for fish and birds.

"When my boat approached the reed marshes, flocks of birds would suddenly fly off cackling in all directions. It was always a spectacular scene," he recalled.

But neither the marshes nor flocks of birds are there any more. A large part of the lake area has been reclaimed for farmland or has been turned into crab farms.

As a result, the area of the lake has shrunk and the number of fish has sharply dropped; so much so that Cheng has to raise fish in ponds.

Where have all the fish and birds gone?

Chihu Lake is not the only one that has seen such changes.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, many lakes in the areas along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are suffering from deforestation, drainage of wetlands and pollution.

Worse still, many lakes which used to be connected with the Yangtze River, such as Chihu, no longer are.

In order to collect first-hand data on the current condition of lakes in the Yangtze River valley, and to raise public awareness of the importance of preserving these lakes, the Fund launched its "Wetland Ambassador Action" this year, in cooperation with the Ramsar Convention Implementing Office of the State Forestry Administration, and the Yangtze Fishery Administration.

Following this year's theme, tracing the lost lakes of the Yangtze River, a total of 106 college and university students conducted field studies on 31 lakes along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, under the Wetland Ambassador Action program. The students visited and interviewed the people living around the lakes.

The areas along the middle and lower reaches of the river hold the greatest concentration of lakes in China. Most of the lakes in the region that are over 10 square kilometers in size used to be connected with the Yangtze River.

These lakes were of pivotal importance in limiting pollution, absorbing flood waters and easing the effects of drought, said Xiao Hong, vice-director of the Wetland Conservation Division of the State Forestry Administration. The free flow of water allowed biodiversity to prosper, providing important habitats and breeding areas for migrating birds, fish and other widelife.

However, due to environmentally insensitive economic development projects and ill-planned irrigation construction, these lakes are no longer connected with the river.

Take central China's Hubei Province for example. The number of lakes in the Jianghan Plain in southern Hubei has decreased sharply from 1,066 in the 1950s to 181 today, according to the State Forestry Administration.

The students found that of the 31 lakes they visited, 30 are no longer connected with Yangtze.

This has resulted in a sharp reduction in wetland areas and has had a devastating impact on the local ecosystem.

Rare species such as the Baiji dolphin (Lipotes vexilifer), finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) and the Chinese sturgeon (Acipenser sinensis) now face the danger of extinction.

The students from Changsha University of Science and Technology were shocked by what they saw in the Datonghu Lake area in Central China's Hunan Province.

Datonghu Lake used to be connected with Dongting Lake, the second largest freshwater lake in China, which is connected with the Yangtze River.

According to a local fisherman who declined to reveal his name, in the 1950s he would take in tens of kilograms of fish every time he threw his net. A day's hardwork could bring in as much as 500 kilograms of fish.

But now the connection between Datonghu Lake and Dongting Lake has been cut. "It is rare nowadays to catch 10 kilograms of carp at one time," he said.

In Honghu Lake, a renowned freshwater lake in central China's Hubei Province, the number of fish species has dropped dramatically from more than 70 in the 1960s to 30 today. Since being separated from the Yangtze River, the lake has seen a shrinkage in area and the water level has decreased, making it impossible for many species of fish to survive.

The students found that Xiliang Lake, in the suburbs of Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, is now less than 50 percent of the size it was in the 1950s.

When lakes shrink, many of the local villagers who depend on fishing for their livelihood, are left unemployed and have to go to the cities to find work.

According to a survey conducted by the students, as many as 71 percent of surveyed households have at least one family member living in the city.

The students have also conducted surveys among villagers to find out their attitudes toward "re-linking lakes to the Yangtze River."

As many as 47 percent of the surveyed villagers in the Xiliang Lake area and 56 percent in the Futou Lake area, both in Hubei Province, said they deemed it necessary to re-link the lakes with the Yangtze River.

But the situation is less promising in other regions. "Many fishermen and local officials have not realized the urgency," according to a report that put together the results of the students' research.

Worse, some others even suspected the students motives.

"Some fishermen declined to offer us any help when we reached Wuchanghu fishery in the county of Wangjiang in Anhui Province, because they felt our work would not bring any change to their lives," said Xiang Lei, from Shanghai-based Fudan University.

However, the local people's attitudes changed gradually when they saw what the students were doing.

When they reached a village, the students would put up posters and talk about the importance of preserving the lakes.

"At first some villagers came up to us asking, 'Are you here to sell something'," said Yang Sicheng, from Changsha's University of Science and Technology, when talking about their experience in Lianhua Village in Hunan Province.

"The crowds quieted down after we began our discussion. They listened rather carefully, nodding their heads and exchanging views with each other occasionally," Yang recalled.

The report and a lot of other "precious data the students have collected during their 20-day investigation," have been "submitted to relevant state authorities and all of the material is expected to have an influence on state policies and laws," according to Liang Haitang, who is in charge of the Fund's Changsha office.

(China Daily October 17, 2003)