China to boost Yellow River fish stocks
2007-02-17

Category Fishing Nations China States Qinghai Ningxia Category Yellow River

Six million fish will be released each year into the Yellow River from next year to boost fish stocks seriously depleted by pollution and over-fishing, according to the state-owned Xinhua news agency.

China has invested three million yuan (350,000 dollars) in a farm on the upper reaches of the river in northern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which will supply five million carp and one million catfish each year, the agency quoted local officials as saying.

More than two decades of rapid industrialisation in China have taken place at a high cost to the environment.

Many cities are shrouded in smog and half of China's rivers are severely polluted, according to the government.

The 5,400-kilometre (3,350-mile) Yellow River, China's second-longest, is among the worst affected waterways.

Last October, the United Nations Environmental Programme declared the estuaries of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers "dead zones" due to the amounts of pollutants they discharge into the sea.

Known as the cradle of early Chinese civilization, the Yellow River originates in the Tibetan plateau in northwest China's Qinghai Province and flows through seven other provinces and regions before emptying into the Bohai Sea.