China Environmental Law

The World Bank’s East Asia & Pacific blog has run a fascinating three part series (all three parts can all be found here) the Bank sponsored “Restoration of Freshwater Biodiversity in Lake Dianchi” project.

Go read the articles since they have a number of links with more information, but here are some of the highlights:

Lake Dianchi [is] way at the top of the list of Asian lakes in terms of endemic fauna. It was as hot a freshwater biodiversity hotspot as one could find outside of the Rift Valley lakes in Africa. Not only is its biodiversity remarkable, but the lake was suffering from industrial, domestic and agricultural pollution, as well as from the tidying up of the shoreline during the Mao Tse-dung era. 

Although the Lake has been the recipient of a much good environmental press lately, apparently it

gets a bad rap for being polluted and covered in algal blooms. While not wanting to paint an overly rosy picture, it is not generally appreciated that the lake experiences a prevailing southerly wind which blows all the water hyacinth, algal mats and general crud to the north, which is the end closest to Kunming and thus the part which gets the most visitors, most attention, and the most polluted water.

Other parts of the lake are really rather nice and at one of the project’s restoration sites, Xialiangwang on the eastern shore, last year was marked by the breeding of Little Grebes, the first-ever sighting in Yunnan of the White-winged Tern, and the re-discovery of one of the endangered endemic species in the lake for the first time in over 30 years [Kunming Mountain Barbel Schizothorax grahami].

A fascinating aspect of the biodiversity at Lake Dianchi is that some of the endemic fish fauna

are essentially confined to ponds protected by Buddhist temples.  These ponds are fed by freshwater springs coming out of the karst hills which surround parts of the Dianchi Basin. The water is beautifully clear and it is a very special feeling to see such excruciatingly rare and restricted species in such special surroundings.

Although there is some work still to complete (including the battle against invasive species), the author concludes that “the future of Lake Dianchi biodiversity is brighter now than for decades.”