Beijing Moves to Protect Wetlands

The city of Beijing has established Yeyahu Lake as its "first wetland park and only wetland reserve for birds," according to an article in Beijing Review by Tang Yuankai.

"Wetland plants can absorb abundant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus from polluted waters. The removal rates of total nitrogen and phosphorus can reach 70 percent and 90 percent, respectively," Xian Ping, director of the department of environmental engineering at Guangxi University's School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering told Tang.

Along with soaking up greenhouse gases, the wetland may help check the city's annual problem of dust storms.

"Experts say that 80 percent of sand is generated locally; a moist surface environment like in a wetland can hold such sands," Hou Baokun, of the Wildlife Protection Office of the Beijing Forestry Bureau, told Tang. "In the 1990s, sandstorms became more frequent while the severe loss of wetlands happened at the same time."

Tang writes that the Beijing Forestry Prospect and Design Institute started a comprehensive study in 2007 of the area's wetlands. Researchers built a plan for preserving existing wetlands and expand the restoration of damaged wetlands.

Right now, China is home to an estimated "38 million hectares of wetlands." But in 2008, the country built "80 wetland parks, more than 550 wetland nature reserves and 36 internationally important wetlands, thus putting 17.9 million hectares of natural wetlands under protection."

All of this protection comes with the force of law, but competing interests, especially the pressure to continue urban development, continually push back. The continued existence of China's wetlands will involve a balancing act, as mentioned in the article, between "economic, ecological and social concerns."

Photo courtesy of Ivan Walsh, via Flickr