University Students Help Protect China's Wetlands

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 ◆ University Students Help Protect China's Wetlands

Students from 10 Chinese universities will carry out their plans to protect the country's major wetlands during the upcoming summer vacation.

The students became the final winners on Saturday of the annual "Wetland Ambassador" Campaign initiated last year by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the State Forestry Administration (SFA) of China to save the country's wetland resources.

Their protection plans were selected from an Internet-based evaluation by a panel of experts from the WWF and the SFA. Therefore, the students became "wetland ambassadors" in China for this year.

WWF will support the "wetland ambassadors" with 500,000 yuan tocarry out protection in nine of China's wetland reserves that have been listed on the Wetland Reserves of International Importance, known as "Ramsar Wetlands."

China became a contracting party of the Ramsar Convention in 1992, pledging to take part in the co-ordinated international conservation action for protecting wetlands. This year, China had another 14 wetland reserves designated as Ramsar wetlands, bringing the total number to 21 which cover 3.03 million hectares.

James Harkness, country representative of WWF China, said that the selected participants would receive on-line training in July to prepare themselves for the conservation task.

He said the students would strive to promote the concept of conservation responsibilities in the Ramsar sites and help local people to make sustainable use of wetland resources.

WWF is one of the world's largest non-governmental environmental protection organizations. It has launched conservation programs in over 100 countries and regions with five million supporters worldwide.

WWF's branch in China has helped the Chinese government to draft a comprehensive action plan to save wetlands. One of the programs planned along the Yangtze River aims to recover the vitality of the river in 25 years.