Cai Shuming, a scientist from the Institute of Geodesy and
Geophysics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has
been engaged in the study of wetland ecology and comprehensive use
of natural resources since the early 1960s. On March 4, the second
day of the annual
session of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China.org.cn had an
exclusive interview with the scientist who was in Beijing attending
the session.
Cai put forward quite a few proposals on wetland protection at
the CPPCC session. "I'm going to stick to the end with the wetland
protection cause," he said.
China is one of the countries with richest wetland resources in
the world. All the 31 types of natural and nine kinds of artificial
wetlands, listed in the Ramsar Wetland Convention, can be found in
China, according to Cai. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is an unrivalled
wetland in the world.
According to SFA statistics in 2004, China had a total 38.48
million hectares of wetlands, calculating only those with an area
exceeding 100 hectares. The figures include 36.2 million hectares
of natural wetlands and 2.28 million artificially formed
ones.
?
To date, 473 wetland nature reserves have been established, helping
protect 45 percent of the country's natural wetlands, 30 of which
have been included in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International
Importance.
"However, the wetland protection task is arduous and there's
still a long way to go," said Cai.
Cai explained that in the past 50 years many localities had
occupied significant areas of natural wetlands by reclaiming and
cultivating them. The area of natural wetlands had dropped sharply.
Over the past 40 years China's coastal regions have lost an
accumulated wetland area of 2.19 million hectares – accounting for
50 percent of the total coastal wetland area. The Sanjiang Plain,
China's largest freshwater wetland, has dropped from 5.34 million
hectares to 1.97 million hectares in the past 50 years.
Speaking of the wetland management systems, Cai explained that
as wetlands are subject to the management of many departments in
China, there was a diversity of interests between them and little
harmony. Due to poor planning and imperfect management mechanisms,
most of wetland reserves weren't achieving their full
potential.
Since the 1980s, the Chinese government had implemented a series
of environmental protection laws and built water environment
monitoring networks. These measures played an important role in
preventing pollution from damaging the wetlands. The China Wetland
Protection Action Plan, which was implemented in 2000, has become
the document on China's wetland protection and sustainable
development. A circular on strengthening wetland protection
management, issued by the State Council in 2004, had put the
protection of these areas at the top of agendas at all levels of
government.?
Currently China has a number of laws which touch upon wetland
and resource protection. These include the Environmental Protection
Law, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, the
Law on Maritime Environmental Protection and the Regulations
Concerning Nature Reserves.
However, said Cai, there were many remaining problems which the
existing laws didn't cover, such as ecological protection, unified
management concepts, the coordination of work and the jurisdiction
over wetlands.
To address these problems Cai suggested the enactment of a
wetland protection law which shall define the ownership of the
wetlands, set up an environmental appraisal system and an
ecological compensation procedure, and establish a legal liability
system.
Cai stressed that public participation in wetland protection is
needed in both social and economic development terms. It is the
duty of citizens to protect the wetlands. The situation in China is
that citizens lack basic knowledge to help them put forward
suggestions and make decisions. "It's very important to educate
people and increase their knowledge of wetland protection. They
should be made aware of the laws, the significance of wetland
protection, and their responsibilities in this regard," Cai
said.
His detailed suggestions include establishing educational bases
in wetland reserves, opening wetland ecological educational
networks in schools, training special teaching staff, popularizing
wetland protection and sustainable development schemes. All of
these things should begin at grass roots level.
In August 2005 the State Council approved a national program for
wetland protection (2005-2010). According to the program, by 2010,
50 percent of the country's natural wetlands and 70 percent of its
important wetlands will be protected; a natural wetland protection
network will be in place to curb the trend of natural wetlands
disappearing. The program will raise China's capabilities in
wetland resource monitoring, management, scientific research, usage
and lift public awareness of wetland protection, Cai said.
More about Cai Shuming
Cai Shuming, a researcher of CAS, has been mainly engaged in the
study of limnology in the Yangtze River valley, wetlands ecology,
use and conservation of natural resources and the overall
development of regional agriculture. He paid special attention to
the environmental variance of the rivers and lakes in the middle
and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the rational
development, utilization and protection of the wetland
resources.
Cai is also a member of the 9th and 10th National Committee of
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC),
vice chairman of the CPPCC
Hubei Provincial Committee, a director of the Hubei Provincial
Committee of the China Association for Promoting Democracy.
In 2002, as member of the China Association for Promoting
Democracy, he participated in drafting related wetland protection
proposals for the association, which were adopted by state leaders
and discussed at the year's national environmental protection
conference. Later it was written into the year's government
report.
For his great contribution in the research on wetland
conservation and its rational use, Cai was presented with the
Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for Science at the Ninth Meeting
of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention of
Wetlands in Kampala, capital of Uganda, in November 8, 2005.
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Dai Fan, translated by Li
Jingrong, March 13, 2006)
