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06/08/2008: "China's shoreline waters seriously polluted: expert"

Vast stretches of China's coastal waters are seriously polluted, and the country's coastal wetlands and mangrove forests are vanishing, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday, citing a marine specialist.

Luan Weixin, a professor at the Economics and Management College at Dalian Maritime University, said 50 percent of inland coastal wetlands had disappeared because of excessive reclamation and 80 percent of coral reefs and mangrove forests had been destroyed over the past 50 years.


Severely affected areas included waters near East Liaoning, Bohai and Hangzhou bays, and the estuaries of the Yellow, Yangtze and Zhujiang rivers, as well as inshore areas of major coastal cities, he told a conference in the northern coastal city of Tianjin.

"Over the past 20 years or so, China's marine economy has been developing at a staggeringly rapid pace and marine resources are being widely tapped. As a result, the condition of China's inshore environment is deteriorating and the ocean ecology has been seriously damaged," Luan said.

[ China has a surprisingly strong green movement - hopefully the government will decide, in national socialist style, that the environment is important to preserve. But confidence in their good judgement would most likely be misplaced. ]

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/37335/print