The results of the State Oceanographic Administration's (SOA) first special investigation into China's marine ecological environment could be described as a mixed bag.

One of the biggest positives for Wang Bin, a major driving force behind the recently completed investigation and a top official at the SOA Marine Environment Protection Division, was the discovery of a large seaweed bed in Xincungang harbor, in South China's Hainan Province.

The seaweed, covering two-fifths of the harbor, is the first discovery of its type since the 1970s.

Its value comes from the environment it creates for marine life and it is as important as corals and mangroves.

"Rarer is the fact that the seaweed bed is still growing," a delighted Wang said.

"That is really a pleasant surprise for all of us. We used to think excessive fishing and engineering projects had destroyed almost all of the seaweed beds in China's coastal areas."

Seaweed not only allows sea creatures like crabs, shrimps and shells to breed, but also assists in the purification of sea water and the preservation of the coastline against waves.

"Since the local government's restriction on excessive fishing and engineering projects in the area has contributed noticeably to the preservation of the seaweed bed, a nature reserve might need to be established for the sake of the valuable seaweed," Wang said.

The country's successful preservation of its wild mangrove areas is a good case in point to support reserves.

An important wild coastal ecological system that exists mainly in South China's Hainan and Guangdong provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the mangrove has largely fought back from extinction, the investigation shows.

"This should be attributed to the establishment of 12 nature reserves, which keep over half of the country's existing mangrove areas untouched by the negative impact of human activities like reclamation and marine engineering projects," Wang said.

Humans have caused the area of the valuable mangroves to decrease from about 50,000 hectares in the middle of last century to less than 15,000 hectares at present.

"The marine nature reserves have curbed the trend of further decreases," Wang said.

The reserves not only allow the mangroves to grow freely, but a carefully planned continuous planting program steadily increases the area.

However, establishing more marine nature reserves is not enough for the protection of the marine ecological environment.

"Detailed special regulation is essential in this aspect, especially a national one," Wang said.

Coral Reef

He cited as an example the grave deterioration of coral reef, widely known as the "tropical rainforest in the sea," along China's southern coastline.

During the investigation, scientists dived deep at several spots in the South China Sea to see the condition of the coral and were frustrated to find the resource is deteriorating rapidly because of human activities.

Only recently did Hainan seize 40 tons of coral that was to be smuggled into Northeast China.

"Only Hainan Province and Beihai in Guangxi have publicly forbidden the unapproved digging of coral. The rest of the country still presents a huge market for coral both as a raw construction material and as a decoration," Wang said.

"We have a special protection zone for coral, but we cannot put all coral under protection of this kind. And illegal digging is really hard to stop if there is no national regulation to erase the great profit behind the digging."

The special investigation, which started in May and covered over 1 million square kilometers, has for the first time presented an overall picture of the country's marine ecological environment.

With some lab experiments still ongoing, Wang said the administration is not yet ready to officially declare the state of the country's marine ecological environment.

"My personal impression is it (the country's ecological environment) is in great need of protection in many areas," he said.

"We shall push with great effort for the adoption of a uniform marine ecological environmental protection program, along with the establishment of more protection zones and a special regulation in this aspect."

(China Daily December 31, 2002)