Sandwiched between the two sprawling deserts of Taklimakan and Kuruktag, the Tarim River, China's longest inland river, whose lower reaches have been dry since 1972, has become the only buffer to prevent the imminent merging of the two.

Since the Tarim, located in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is the only water source for the sandbreak forest on the lower reaches, China's central government made a pledge last year to invest 10.7 billion yuan (about US$1.29 billion) in the local ecological development in order to restore its entire water flow.

To date, embankment and sluice construction along the section of the Shazi River and the Aqqik River have been completed and some 57 projects with a combined investment of 1.266 billion yuan (about US$152.5 million) are underway.

Early this June, construction began on a fourth water diversion, which will channel 400 million cubic meters of water from Bosten Lake in the upper reaches of the river.

Local official Zhu Xiangmin of the Tarim River Valley Management Administration said the purpose of the diversion was to restore the water flow in all lower river courses and also to to expand the water area of Taitema Lake, terminal of the river, from its present six square kilometers to 10.

Between 2000 and 2001, some 1.5 billion cubic meters of water were discharged in three separate water injections, and the development of underground water sources is encouraged by local government in order to conserve surface water.

In addition, the practice of converting wasteland to the use of crop cultivation has been thoroughly banned in the neighboring prefectures of Aksu and Kashi, the Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture of Kizilsu and the Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin.

As a result, the 320 kilometer-long section of the river's lower reaches, which had been dry for 30 years due to the lack of water conservation and poor use of land resources, had its flow restored for the first time last year.

During the 2002 flood season, the river's water flow increased by nearly 50 percent, and the river's trunk stream discharged 70 million cubic meters more to its lower reaches than it did in 2001.

As water conservation has become a top priority for local governments, water consumption ceilings have been imposed, and activities attempting to intercept water through illegal means have been outlawed.

These years, sere vegetation on the banks of the lower reaches has begun to regain its vitality, and wildlife such as hare and boars, who had disappeared for years, have reappeared.

Commonly known as the "Mother River," the 1,321-kilometer-long river, running west to east along the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert, has long been considered the lifeline of the people living in the drought-prone southern part of the autonomous region.

(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2002)