Photo shows a flock of egrets flying over a Yellow River wetland in Pinglu county, north China’s Shanxi Province. (Photo/People’s Daily Online)
North China's Shanxi Province has made great strides in ecological conservation in recent years, attracting an increasing number of migratory birds during autumn and winter.
The province, which the Yellow River flows through, has restored the forests and grasslands in the basin of China’s "Mother River", integrated efforts to conserve mountains, rivers, forests, farmland, lakes, grasslands and deserts, converted farmland to wetland, and launched wetland protection and restoration projects.
In addition, over the past 10 years, Shanxi has afforested over 4 million mu (about 266,667 hectares) of land each year, bringing the province’s forest coverage rate from 18.03 percent in 2010 to 23.57 percent in 2020, higher than the average nationwide level for the first time in history.
These efforts have resulted in great improvements in the ecological environment of wetlands and rivers, such as Shengtianhu wetland, China’s largest national wetland in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and Fenhe River, Shanxi's mother river.
Ruicheng county in Yuncheng city, for example, has seen the number of whooper swans transferring here in autumn and winter increase about tenfold. "The environment is getting better and better. There are over 10,000 whooper swans that accompany me today, up from less than 100 a decade ago," said He Jianxi, a ranger.
In addition, a growing number of bird species including black storks, grey cranes, and flamingos overwinter in Shanxi, according to Wang Yifei, an official of the province’s forestry and grassland department.
