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Dam plans threatens China's migratory bird haven
But environmentalists warn damming Poyang Lake, a winter stopover for over half a million birds, would threaten the fragile ecosystem and the endangered birds and other wildlife it supports.
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This photo taken on November 6, 2022, shows a migratory bird at the dried-up freshwater Poyang Lake in Juijiang, China's central Jiangxi province. Spooked by a historic drought, local authorities in China have renewed controversial plans to dam the country's biggest freshwater lake, which is slowly recovering after shrinking to less than a third of its usual size. But environmentalists warn damming Poyang Lake, a winter stopover for over half a million birds, would threaten the fragile ecosystem and the endangered creatures it supports.
(AFP /Noel Celis)
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pooked by a historic drought, local authorities in China have renewed controversial plans to dam the country's biggest freshwater lake.
But environmentalists warn damming Poyang Lake, a winter stopover for over half a million birds, would threaten the fragile ecosystem and the endangered birds and other wildlife it supports.
China is currently chairing UN biodiversity talks in Montreal, billed as the "last best chance" to save the planet's species and their habitats from irreversible human destruction.
The Poyang dam, which is slowly recovering after shrinking to less than a third of its usual size, shows how fraught such efforts are in China.
Conservationist Zhang Daqian said that if realised, the 3,000-metre-long sluice gate across one of the lake's channels would cut it off from the river Yangtze, "leaving Poyang a dead lake".
China has built more than 50,000 dams in the Yangtze basin in the past 70 years -- including the Three Gorges, which came in the face of widespread opposition from environmentalists.
Over the same period at least 70 percent of the river's wetlands have vanished, according to data from the environment ministry.
