State Oceanographic Administration Director Wang Shuguang vowed
yesterday to step up efforts to protect China's marine environment.
Next year, the administration will produce the country's first
national program on marine ecological construction and marine
environment protection, and start to publish monitoring results of
various aquatic-raising areas, Wang disclosed at a conference
reviewing the administration's work in 2002.
The program is based on the country's first special investigation
on marine ecological environment, whose seven-month fieldwork has
just concluded.
"The investigation results sound a grave warning on the
deterioration of our marine environment," said Li Xiaoming,
director of the Marine Environment Protection Department of the
administration.
"With the program, we expect to arrange a systematic campaign to
protect and purposely restore marine ecological systems in certain
areas, before irreversible damages occurs."
According to Li, because of excessive fishing, rash marine
engineering construction projects, and unchecked pollutants
discharged from a range of activities, including oil exploitation,
marine ecological systems in many areas have suffered varying
degrees of damage.
As
for the monitoring of aquatic raising environment, that is one step
on from this year's successful practice of red tide monitoring,
pinpointing the sea water used especially for aquatic raising.
Red tide, the explosive propagation of algae which might poison or
suffocate marine creatures, has been the scourge of Chinese
fishermen over the past few years, causing serious economic
losses.
Against this backdrop, the administration divided the country's
coastal waters into 10 sections and closely watched for red tides
by using its 71 monitoring stations.
All of this year's 21 red tides erupting in the monitored regions
have been successfully detected and forecast.
As
a result, many seaside areas enjoyed enhanced profits from
fishing.
For example, East China's Fujian Province, one major fishing area
of the country, reduced its economic loss from red tide by 90
million yuan (US$10.9 million) this year.
(China Daily December 31, 2002)