On January 16, 2021, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) Research Department will formally convene a symposium on “Poyang Lake Ecological Protection and Water Conservancy Engineering Construction Project” in Beijing to discuss various issues arising from the construction of the floodgate (or dam) in Poyang Lake.
These issues will include: Is it necessary to build a dam (or floodgate) that cut the link between the rivers (lakes)? Once it’s completed, how it will affect the water scheduling, migratory bird habitats and food chains, migration of aquatic organisms, regional biosecurity and water environment? And what will be the impact of flood prevention, etc.
The symposium strived to conduct an objective and comprehensive discussion, hoping to come up with constructive suggestions that are scientific, ecological, and both the people’s livelihood and economic development were taken into consideration, so as to reflect them to relevant functional departments and the Jiangxi Provincial departments.
At present, this meeting has confirmed the attendance of 15 experts including two academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The CBCGDF Research Department also sincerely invites interested experts, heads of institutions and the media to participate and provide comments or suggestions on related issues.
Related background:
In 2002, Jiangxi Province proposed to carry out the Poyang Lake Control Project, aiming to solve the phenomenon that Poyang Lake began to be "emptied" in the dry season.
In September 2009, 15 academicians and experts wrote a letter to the State Council, stating that they “are very concerned about the proposed Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Project in Jiangxi Province and agree that the project does not meet the requirements of the scientific development concept and the law of historical development of the Yangtze River Basin." On November 23, 2016, the Department of Water Resources of Jiangxi Province issued another announcement that it planned to build a water conservancy hub between Poyang Lake’s waterway, Pingfeng Mountain and Changling Mountain, which once again aroused widespread attention, but under a petition jointly signed by 10,000 people, the project was suspended.
However, recently, just over a month before the implementation of the Yangtze River Protection Law, the Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Project, which has been controversial for 12 years, once again held a technical seminar on environmental impact special reports at the feasibility study stage, aroused widespread concern in society.
Poyang Lake is China's largest freshwater lake and the largest wetland in the Yangtze River Basin. Together with Dongting Lake, it is called the "kidney" of the Yangtze River. It not only has the function of sharing the flood peaks of the Yangtze River, regulating the regional climate and ecology, but also the natural habitat of the Yangtze River's aquatic organisms, sanctuary and a place for rare birds to overwinter.
The construction of the Poyang Lake water conservancy project is by no means just a matter of engineering technology. Its ecological issues have always been an important part of the protection of the Yangtze River, and also an important example of ecological civilization construction and promotion of ecological protection and the coordinated development of economic society.
For more information on this symposium, click http://www.cbcgdf.org/English/NewsShow/5012/15066.html to learn more.
Original Chinese article:
http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4936/15091.html
By / Maggie
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http://www.cbcgdf.org/English/ConfirmDonaTion/0.html