In June of 2003, I walked along the legendary Yangtze River in Shanghai, China. On the one hand, it was one of the greatest moments of my life to see with own eyes one of the greatest tributaries in the world. However, the pollution I witnessed was one of the most tragic I hhave ever seen. Now comes a report what I saw nearly 4 years ago.
China's massive Yangtze river, a lifeline for tens of millions of people, is seriously polluted and the damage is almost irreversible, a state-run newspaper said Monday.
More than 370 miles of the river are in critical condition and almost 30 percent of its major tributaries are seriously polluted, the China Daily said, citing a report by the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The pollution, along with damming and heavy use of boats, has caused a sharp decline in aquatic life along the Yangtze.
The report said the annual harvest of aquatic products from the river has dropped from 427,000 tons in the 1950s to about 100,000 tons in the 1990s.
"The impact of human activities on the Yangtze water ecology is largely irreversible," Yang Guishan, a researcher at the institute, was quoted as saying.
China's communist government faces a challenge in much of the country to deal with worsening pollution caused by rapid economic growth and the failure of factories, sewage systems and other sources to follow environmental regulations.
The Yangtze accounts for 35 percent of China's total fresh water resources, the report said.
It also showed that the huge reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydropower project, was seriously polluted by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage from passenger boats.
If you have ever been to China, you will know that the pollution problem is not limited to the river. I was staying with a guest that moth who kept the windows open (it was so freaking hot), and every morning I would wake up to an odd odor in the air. The haze was so thick that I rarely saw the sun and soot was everywhere. A few months prior to that trip, I was in Hong Kong and it was no different, the Harbor was so foul that I did not dare allow myself to get wet as we were travelling along in the sanpan boat.
While China's economic boom raises the hope of a better future, it is also possibly now the single greatest threat to the East Asian ecology and the global environment as a whole. Hopefuly, the possible death of the great Yangtze will be their wakeup call.