China has dismantled 300 dams and shut down most small hydropower stations on a major Yangtze River tributary to help restore fish habitats and river health, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
The move affects the Chishui He, also known as the Red River, a 400-kilometre waterway flowing through Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan provinces. By the end of December 2024, 300 out of 357 dams had been removed, and 342 of 373 small hydropower stations had stopped operating, according to a Xinhua report cited by SCMP.
The Red River is seen by ecologists as one of the last safe places for rare native fish in the upper Yangtze. Over the years, dams and power stations blocked fish migration and limited water flow, damaging breeding areas.Zhou Jianjun, a hydraulic engineering professor at Tsinghua University, told SCMP that decommissioning usually means stopping electricity generation.
“The key is not whether the facilities still exist, but that, after power generation stops, the method of water control can be changed to meet ecological needs,” Zhou said.The restoration project began in 2020. Since then, conditions have improved enough for species like the Yangtze sturgeon to return. The Yangtze sturgeon, sometimes called the river’s “last giant”, was declared extinct in the wild by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2022. In 2023 and 2024, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Hydrobiology released sturgeon into the Red River. SCMP said the fish adapted well.
This April, 20 adult sturgeon were released in Guizhou province. “By mid-April, they were showing natural spawning behaviour and successfully hatching fry,” Liu Fei, a researcher at the institute, told SCMP. “This achievement indicates that the current ecological environment of the Red River can now meet the habitat and reproductive needs of Yangtze sturgeon.” The institute’s monitoring also showed that the number of fish species in the river is increasing.
China introduced a 10-year fishing ban on the Yangtze in 2020, part of wider efforts to protect the river’s ecosystem. As per SCMP report, by the end of 2021, Sichuan had dealt with 5,131 small hydropower stations, shutting down over 1,200 of them. Authorities have also banned sand mining to create better conditions for aquatic life.
In a government update published in August 2024, Beijing said aquatic biodiversity had improved since the fishing ban began. Fish, amphibians, and other species were showing signs of recovery, and water quality had reached what officials called “excellent” levels.
News Courtesy: Indianexpress