Such a park will be unique in the world and will offer examples for the protection of this special species, said Professor Jiang Mingxing, a marine scientist.

The mangrove is a special forest that grows in the transitional areas from the continental mass to the sea, an important species of protection in the global bio-diversity and wetland protection plans. In the last few decades, the mangroves in China's southeast coasts had been severely disrupted by human activities and 70% have already disappeared. There were 400 hectares of mangroves in Yuzhouping in the city center and now only 230 hectares survive in the "city of mangroves".

When the city was first established in 1993 large tracts of the off-shore area where mangroves grew was demarcated as warehouses for the Huada company.

As the Chinese law forbids any damages to the disruption of mangrove, the local government faced a dilemma. It finally decided to preserve the mangroves for a marine park and promised to compensate the investor and allocate another piece of offshore area to the company.

Long Ju, the chairman of the company's board and an environmental enthusiast, believed that the business of the marine park will also produce great economic effects. He made an inspection tour of those mangrove parks in Hepu, Guangxi and Shenzhen in Guangdong and is now on a tour in Hong Kong looking for partners for the development of this marine ecological park.

The city has revised its urban plan and starts to build the project that boasts of mangrove system protection, marine scientific research, science popularization education, tourism, sports and entertainment.

In an interview, Tao Rongqian, deputy secretary general of the general office of the municipal government, said that from the short-term view the government and the company have all suffered some considerable loss, however, from a long-term prospective, the mangrove park will help upgrade the city and serve as its precious property.

(www.cenews.com.cn September 16, 2002)