They spent their two-month summer vacation giving publicity to knowledge of wetland protection in the countryside around the nation’s wetland areas.

The activity, funded by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the world’s largest unofficial environmental protection organization, started July 19 and lasted nearly two months, covering major wetland areas along the Yangtze River.

Over the two months, through lectures, interviews, web pages, slide shows and films, these students demonstrated to local residents the importance of protecting wetlands.

Yin Hong, an official with the State Forestry Administration, highly praised the activity, saying that students conveyed their knowledge of wetlands protection to local officials and farmers “passionately and successfully.”

She added that the central government is pursuing a long-term policy of wetlands protection, with an emphasis on raising public awareness, especially in the areas around existing major wetlands.

A student representative from the Central University of Finance and Economics said at the ceremony that through this program, he got a better understanding of the arduousness and urgency of the task to protect the nation’s deteriorating environment.

He promised on behalf of the volunteers that they would continue to persuade people living around wetlands to protect these precious natural ecological systems.

Wetlands, often referred to as the earth’s “kidneys”, play an important role in water conservation, biological diversity and the prevention of flooding and soil erosion.

(China Daily 09/24/2001)