More than half of Chinese rivers have “disappeared” since 1990s

by | Mar 29, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Emily Ford / The Times

About 28,000 rivers have disappeared from China’s state maps, an absence seized upon by environmentalists as evidence of the irreversible natural cost of developmental excesses.

More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China now appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census, leaving Beijing fumbling to explain the cause.

Only 22,909 rivers, covering an area of 100 square kilometres were located by surveyors, compared with the more than 50,000 present in the 1990s, a three-year study by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics found.

Officials blame the apparent loss on climate change, arguing that it has caused waterways to vanish, and on mistakes by earlier cartographers. But environmental experts say that the disappearance of the rivers is a real and a direct manifestation of headlong, ill-conceived development, where projects are often imposed or approved without public consultation.

The United Nations considers China one of the 13 countries most affected by water scarcity, as industrial toxins have poisoned historic water sources and were blamed last year for causing the Yangtze to turn an alarming shade of red. This month the carcasses of about 16,000 dead pigs dumped in the river have been pulled from its waters, and 1,000 dead ducks were found dumped this week in the Nanhe River in the southwestern Sichuan province.

Ma Jun, a water expert at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that the missing rivers were a cause for “great attention” and underscored the urgent need for a more sustainable mode of development.

“There might be some disparity [in the number of rivers] due to different research methods. However, the disappearance of rivers is the reality. It is really happening in China because of the over-exploitation of river resources,” Mr Ma said. “One of the major reasons is the over-exploitation of the underground water reserves, while environmental destruction is another reason, because desertification of forests has caused a rain shortage in the mountain areas.”

Large hydroelectric projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, which diverted trillions of gallons of water to drier regions, were likely to have played a role, Mr Ma said.

The census charted a decline in water quality, citing the “severe over-exploitation” of underground water reserves by 60 of its biggest cities.

The report came as Li Keqiang, the new premier, gave a speech in which he pledged greater transparency on pollution, which Beijing fears is a potential catalyst for social unrest.

“We must take the steps in advance, rather than hurry to handle these issues when they have caused a disturbance in society,” Mr Li was quoted by state media as saying.

The missing rivers provoked wistful recollections among Chinese internet users, most of whom will have witnessed dizzying urbanisation.

“The rivers I used to play around have disappeared, the only ones left are polluted, we can’t eat the fish in them, they are all bitter,” a person using the name Pippi Shuanger wrote on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

Despite water shortages, the threat of floods is a problem for much of the Chinese mainland, with two thirds of the population living in flood-prone areas. Flash floods caused by heavy rain claimed the lives of 77 people in Beijing last July.

From The Times: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article3725724.ece

China allows landowners to sell 15% of giant panda habitat to corporations

China allows landowners to sell 15% of giant panda habitat to corporations

by | Feb 10, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Mongabay

China’s decision to open up collective forest for sale by individuals to outside interests will put 345,700 hectares or 15 percent of the giant panda’s remaining habitat at risk, warns a letter published in the journal Science.

The letter, authored by a team of researchers including scientists from Conservation International and Chinese institutions, says that China’s land tenure reform will open key panda habitat to logging and conversion by allowing collectively-owned land to be transferred or leased to commercial enterprises. The letter cites a recent case where a timber company purchased 15,000 ha of forest in Chongqing Province.

“This change puts these vital habitats potentially under threat from commercial logging, increased collection of firewood and non-timber forest products by outside enterprises, and other commercial development activities,” said co-author Russell Mittermeier, a biologist who serves as President of Conservation International (CI), in a statement. “Sadly, it would threaten to deforest, degrade or disturb up to 15% of the remaining giant panda habitat.”

“The reform contradicts the great steps the Chinese government has taken to conserve the giant panda in recent decades,” added Li Zhang, a scientist with Conservation International China. “The government has designated 63 panda reserves which constitute over 60% of the panda’s remaining wild habitat, improved the species’ endangered habitats by reforesting or restoring native forests and restricting human access to these, increased the number and capacity of forestry staff in these areas, strictly banned hunting of the species, and pioneered captive breeding techniques. As a result of these efforts, the official number of giant pandas in the wild has increased to nearly 1,600 from less than 1,000 in the late 1980s. It would be inexcusable to reverse this great achievement for these majestic creatures and our country’s recent conservation efforts.”

The giant panda is classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List due to habitat loss and hunting. The species has been driven to extinction in Vietnam and Myanmar. In China it’s habitat — old growth forests — has fallen by roughly 60 percent since 1950.

30 years of industrialization in China has destroyed at least 80% of coral reefs

by | Dec 27, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Agence France-Presse

China’s economic boom has seen its coral reefs shrink by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years, according to a joint Australian study, with researchers describing “grim” levels of damage and loss.

Scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology said their survey of mainland China and South China Sea reefs showed alarming degradation.

“We found that coral abundance has declined by at least 80 percent over the past 30 years on coastal fringing reefs along the Chinese mainland and adjoining Hainan Island,” said the study, published in the latest edition of the journal Conservation Biology.

“On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by six countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined from an average of greater than 60 percent to around 20 percent within the past 10-15 years,” it added.

Coastal development, pollution and overfishing linked to the Asian giant’s aggressive economic expansion were the major drivers, the authors said, describing a “grim picture of decline, degradation and destruction”.

“China’s ongoing economic expansion has exacerbated many wicked environmental problems, including widespread habitat loss due to coastal development, unsustainable levels of fishing, and pollution,” the study said.

Coral loss in the South China Sea — where reefs stretch across some 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 square miles) — was compounded by poor governance stemming from competing territorial claims.

Some marine parks aimed at conservation had been established but study author Terry Hughes said they were too small and too far apart to arrest the decline in coral cover.

“The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed in this study,” he said.

The South China Sea is strategically significant, home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and believed to be rich in resources.

China claims most of the sea including waters close to the shores of its neighbours. Rival claimants include Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and tensions over the issue have flared in recent years.

From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/26/study-coral-reefs-decimated-by-chinese-economic-boom/

China Funding Construction of 308 Dams In 70 Countries

China Funding Construction of 308 Dams In 70 Countries

by | Dec 10, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, NEWS

By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay

A new report by the NGO, International Rivers, takes an in-depth look at the role China is playing in building mega-dams worldwide. According to the report, Chinese companies are involved in 308 hydroelectric projects across 70 nations. While dams are often billed as “green energy,” they can have massive ecological impacts on rivers, raise local conflict, and even expel significant levels of greenhouse gases when built in the tropics.

“The Chinese state owned Sinohydro Corporation is now the largest hydropower company in the world. Many Chinese companies involved in the construction of large hydropower projects such as the Three Gorges Dam are now taking the lead role in new hydropower projects around the world,” reads the report which adds that “the China Export-Import Bank (China Exim Bank) has become a major funder of large dams.”

Nearly half of the dams in question are planned for Southeast Asia, while 28 percent are planned for Africa and 8 percent for Latin America. Since 2008, the number of dams that the Chinese are involved in has grown by 300 percent. Yet many of these projects lack any or stringent environmental and social policies.

“Few Chinese dam builders and financiers have adopted environmental policies in line with international standards,” the report notes, adding that Chinese companies have been involved with building notorious dams, such as the Gibe III in Ethiopia, the Bukan Dam in Malaysia, the Myitsone Dam in Myanmar, and the Merowe Dam in Sudan.

For example, over 50,000 people were forcibly moved in order to build the Merowe Dam. According to the report, the Sudan government “brutally oppressed any protests. Several people were killed and many more were injured in crack-downs by the security forces.”

A number of Chinese-financed dams have faced local and global resistance. Progress has been made in some cases: this year the Sinohydro Corporation has adopted its first ever environmental policy.

“Among other provisions, the world’s biggest hydropower company commits to fully comply with applicable laws on all levels, adopt all World Bank safeguard policies, respect ‘no go’ zones including national parks and World heritage sites, conduct an open dialogue with local communities and NGOs, and create complaint mechanisms for all of its projects,” according to the report.

Still International Rivers warns that “environmental policies are only as good as their implementation on the ground. This will be the next great challenge for Sinohydro.”

Banner Photo by Alex Bagirov on Unsplash

Electric cars and wind farms spurring ecological and social devastation in China

by | Aug 7, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification

By Le Monde

From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.

The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.

The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.

It was in 1958 – when he was 10 – that a state-owned concern, the Baotou Iron and Steel company (Baogang), started producing rare-earth minerals. The lake appeared at that time. “To begin with we didn’t notice the pollution it was causing. How could we have known?” As secretary general of the local branch of the Communist party, he is one of the few residents who dares to speak out.

Towards the end of the 1980s, Li explains, crops in nearby villages started to fail: “Plants grew badly. They would flower all right, but sometimes there was no fruit or they were small or smelt awful.” Ten years later the villagers had to accept that vegetables simply would not grow any longer. In the village of Xinguang Sancun – much as in all those near the Baotou factories – farmers let some fields run wild and stopped planting anything but wheat and corn.

A study by the municipal environmental protection agency showed that rare-earth minerals were the source of their problems. The minerals themselves caused pollution, but also the dozens of new factories that had sprung up around the processing facilities and a fossil-fuel power station feeding Baotou’s new industrial fabric. Residents of what was now known as the “rare-earth capital of the world” were inhaling solvent vapour, particularly sulphuric acid, as well as coal dust, clearly visible in the air between houses.

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution