The Yangtze River basin is under a 10-year fishing ban starting January 1, 2021. About 280,000 fishermen are screaming for their livelihood.
The construction of 24,100 hydropower plants in the Yangtze River basin, as well as indiscriminate fishing by fishermen, has seriously damaged the water ecology of the Yangtze River basin. Since New Year’s Day 2021, the CCP has imposed a 10-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River waters. As a result, some 280,000 fishermen are crying out for their livelihood.
Two years ago, at a forum on the protection of biological resources of the Yangtze River held in Wuhan, several experts mentioned that there are many water conservancy hub projects in the Yangtze River basin, including 24,100 small hydropower plants, and the excessive and disorderly development has brought serious impact on the water ecology of the Yangtze River basin. And indiscriminate fishing by fishermen has further damaged the ecology of the Yangtze River waters.
In early 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media said that in order to protect the ecological environment, the CCP authorities have imposed a phased ban on fishing in key waters of the Yangtze River basin, with a tentative 10-year ban on fishing to be fully implemented by January 1, 2021 at the latest. Some waters have been closed to fishing since early 2020.
According to calculations along the river, the ban on fishing in key waters of the Yangtze River basin involves more than 113,000 legally licensed fishing vessels and nearly 280,000 fishermen in 10 provinces and cities along the river. Fishermen are crying out for their livelihoods to be affected.
The authorities have promised to provide fishermen with skills training, job referrals and credit support, but fishermen say it is not easy to find work after going ashore and it is difficult to maintain their livelihood.
A 2019 study by the Yangtze River Basin Fishery Administration Supervision and Management Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and rural Affairs shows that more than half of Yangtze fishermen are over the age of 50, and the vast majority have only primary or junior high school education levels. They generally opt for the lowest standard of contribution in pension insurance, and receive only 80-120 yuan in pensions when they retire.
Experts quoted by the mainland media said, “The biggest difficulty in the smooth transition of fishermen lies in the restoration and reconstruction of livelihoods, followed by the relocation of fishermen to shore for proper resettlement, and the third is social integration and socio-economic integration. The solution to the problem requires the adoption of a combination of punches and the adoption of a diversified and complex migration and resettlement path.
Yan Zhenghua, a 65-year-old fisherman, misses the taste of Yangtze fish. He comes from the riverside village of Xinxing in Yibin, Sichuan, where people have been fishing for generations. The village is located next to the sturgeon-producing Fuxikou.
Fuxikou is a “deep water creek” with good water quality, a wide river surface, and a 40 to 50 meter deep riverbed below the surface. Local fishermen say that Fuxikou is a place frequented by large fish.
Among the fishermen in Yibin, there is a saying that “a thousand pounds of lazi and ten thousand pounds of statue”. The words “Lazi (fish)” and “Like (fish)” refer to the Chinese sturgeon and the Yangtze white sturgeon, respectively. White sturgeon is the largest freshwater fish in China, because of its long kiss, like an elephant trunk, commonly known as “like fish”.
Although thousands of pounds is exaggerated, but Yan Zhenghua said, in 1993 caught a more than 200 pounds, about 2.3 meters of white sturgeon, it took two flatbed trucks to put down.
Yan Zhenghua counted: including this white sturgeon, he has seen more than 20 large fish weighing hundreds of pounds in the past 40 years of fishing career, and has personally caught three fish of more than 100 pounds.
This bonanza lasted until the 1990s. At that time, “there were plenty of 70- to 80-pound fish. One day, Yan Zhenghua was so lucky that he earned $7,000 to $8,000 in one morning by catching fish. He could earn more than 100,000 yuan a year.
But the bountiful harvest of the fishing industry did not last. From the 1990s, the fishery resources around Fuxi Mouth began to shrink significantly, and the income from fishing got worse every year.
Habitat loss, water pollution and indiscriminate fishing are considered to be the main reasons for the depletion of fishery resources in the Yangtze River.
It is reported that the Yangtze River basin used to account for 60% of the total freshwater fishery production in China, but in the long years of overfishing, now there is less than 1% left, some experts worry that the Yangtze River has been damaged too seriously, just rely on just 10 years of fishing ban has been unable to recover.
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