The Yellow River Delta is an important habitat for migratory birds. Ju Chuanjiang / China Daily

With work underway across 80,000 hectares of wetlands, half of Shandong province's wetlands fauna and 70 percent of the ecosystem's flora have been preserved over the past six years.

Some 40 percent of the Shandong's wetlands system has been restored through projects around major lakes and rivers, including the Yellow River Delta and Dongping, Mata and Weishan lakes.

According to Jia Chongfu, head of Shandong Forestry Bureau, Shandong has now spent 1.3 billion yuan ($204.6 million) to protect wetlands. Bureau statistics show Shandong's current 17 wetlands nature reserves cover 620,000 hectares, about 35 percent of the province's total wetlands.

The reserve zones, together with 61 wetland parks and two wetland protection demonstration bases, form a general wetland protection system in Shandong.

According to the province's plan for the 12th Five-Year (2011-2015), Shandong will continue its efforts to restore wetlands and place 70 percent of the wetlands area under protection.

Shandong has five kinds of wetlands that are fed by the sea, rivers, lakes and swamps or are manmade.

They are home to nearly half of the fauna and flora varieties in China.

The Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, which covers 153,000 hectares on one of China's largest wetlands, is an important habitat and breeding ground for migratory birds from Northeast Asia and the western Pacific.

It has 393 types of flora, and 10,000-hectares of reed marsh, tamarisk forest, locust trees, red iodine weeds and grassland.

It also has more than 1,520 types of fauna and provides a natural habitat for almost 265 bird species, among which some 40 species are on the nation's protected list, such as red-crowned crane, white stork and golden eagle.

The Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve is now a research base for several organizations.

zhaoruixue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/05/2012 page24)