Subsidized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the 50 college students will go to provinces and cities such as Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and Shanghai for a two-month wetland restoration and protection tour.

Students will work with farmers and offer them practical methods, including grassland husbandry, chicken, duck and fish breeding, and greenhouse planting so that farmers may seek new livelihoods, China Daily reported.

“Our aim is to help improve the environment and protect wetland in the Yangtze River area through the efforts of both the students and farmers,” said Ding Jing from the WWF China Program Office.

Since 1990, because of environmental deterioration, the Yangtze River has become more and more hostile to people to live alongside.

When there is a serious flooding, the river may cause drowning and destroy land because the water cannot be diverted to nearby wetland already occupied by houses and farmlands.

The loss and degradation of spectacular wetland is mainly due to human actions such as drainage, damming and tilling for crop production.

Realizing the importance of wetland for ecological balance, the government has made great effort in protecting wetland as part of its strategy to improve the environment.

In 1998, the State Council defined a framework for ecological conservation in the middle reaches of the Yangtze area that focuses on wetland restoration and protection.

This plan requires farmers to move out of flood-prone areas where they have built houses and cultivated farmland, and restore the wetland they had occupied. After they move to higher ground, water returns and the wetland in the lower region is restored.

(Xinhua News Agency 07/05/2001)