A national lake protection organization will be established to promote the protection and sustainable development of China's fresh water lakes threatened by pollution.

 

The China Living Lake Network (CLLN) will seek help from organizations at home and abroad to enlarge and improve the environment of lakes, said Wang Xiaohong, office director of the Association to Promote Mountain-River-Lake Regional Development based in east China's Jiangxi Province.

 

The nongovernmental organization would be set up after being approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said Wang, an advocate of the CLLN.

 

The CLLN was initiated by the association, the World Wide Fund For Nature, the Institute of Geography and Limnology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Environmental Development Institute, at the 11th International Living Lakes Conference on Thursday in Nanchang, the provincial capital.

 

The CLLN would conduct regular exchanges with the World Living Lake Network, an international organization focusing on the protection of lakes and wetlands around the world, said Wang.

 

Seventy-five percent of China's 20,000 natural lakes and thousands of artificial lakes suffered from algae pollution caused by an influx of waste water containing nitrogen, phosphorus and other harmful substances, said Zhu Guangyao, Vice Minister of State Environmental Protection Administration of China.

 

More than half of the world's lakes are facing serious problems such as soil degradation, unsustainable water withdrawal for irrigation, eutrophication and pollution by pesticides, said Marion Hammerl, president of the Global Nature Fund, at the conference.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 3, 2006)