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Zhang Dongsheng, head of the Aba Tibet and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province who is in Beijing to attend the First Session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), cited some signs of the improving ecological environment in Aba and neighboring Garze Prefecture on the upper reaches of the river.
He said the number of wild animals in the area has increased, and the incidence of mud-rock flows and floods has dropped significantly.
"Before 1999, it took at least one week for the muddy river water to become clear after a heavy rain. Now it takes only three days," he said.
Aba is located in the southeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and covers an area of 84,000 square kilometers. The Minjiang River and Dadu River, two main tributaries of the Yangtze, cut through the prefecture, which is also a major water source of the Yellow River, China's second longest river.
Excessive felling of trees in the past has resulted in serious damage to the local ecological environment and serious soil erosion, with hundreds of million tons of soil entering the Yangtze every year.
Since the program to protect the natural forest and return cultivated land to forests was launched, Sichuan Province ordered the felling of natural forest be stopped completely in 174 counties and cities, and enhanced protection of nearly 20 million hectares of local natural forest resources.
In 2002 alone, 240,000 hectares of trees were planted in the province.
Zhang said they would continue to work hard for protecting the local forest resources. They would also beef up the protection of the grassland on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for the creation of a "green ecological belt on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River."
For this purpose, Zhang said he and Rao Dasi, another NPC deputy and head of Garze Prefecture, will jointly put forward a proposal at the NPC session.
(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2003)
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