A seasonal three-month fishing ban on China’s Yangtze River,
imposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, comes into force this
Thursday.
(File
photo)
Fishing boats will be banned from trawling 1,000 kilometers of
the river in central China's Hubei Province and southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. In Hubei alone over
600 fishing boats and 1,000 fishermen will be affected.
Fishing bans on another 700-kilometer stretch of the Yangtze and
970-kilometers of its tributary the Hanjiang will take effect from
April 1 to June 30.
The government said seasonal fishing bans on the Yangtze River
-- introduced in 2002 to conserve aquatic resources -- have made
some difference. According to Hubei officials 320 million fries of
herring, grass carp, chub and bighead fish have been released into
the river and catches have increased by 50 percent since 2002.
The Yangtze River has long been regarded as the "cradle of
China's freshwater fish and a valuable bank of fish genes".
However, over fishing in recent years has brought some varieties to
the brink of extinction.
(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2007)
