Water conservation drive gets boost

BEIJING — Veteran Lyu Qingrong, 55, is a wellknown “river guardian” in his hometown, Xingjiagou village, in northeast China’s Liaoning province.

Over the past 34 years, he has collected nearly 100 tonnes of garbage with his bare hands from the banks of the Biliu River, a major water supply source for Dalian, a coastal city with about eight million people.

Lyu started collecting the garbage in 1984 when he retired from the army and became a forest ranger. Lyu was one of the earliest environment volunteers at a time when public awareness was low.

“The Biliu River was then full of garbage and dead animals. And when I started to pick up the garbage, people said I was stupid,” he said.

Speaking about the work, his wife Zong Haili, a village schoolteacher, whom he persuaded to join him, said “In the beginning I was embarrassed. I tried not to be seen by other villagers.”

Then, the couple used to spend their own money to buy garbage bags.

Recalling those early days, Lyu said: “I was not stupid like people said. I was just doing something different at a time when most people did not realize the need to protect the river and the environment.”

Now the province’s environment volunteer team has 2,000 members. And speaking about his plans, Lyu said: “I want to build a museum for environment protection, and draw even more people in.”

Meanwhile, the central government has pledged to build a “Beautiful China,” with unprecedented efforts to clean up the environment.

Official statistics show that the central government invested 226.6 billion yuan (about $34.3 billion) in water conservation projects in poor regions between 2012 and 2016.

The funding enabled 110 million rural residents access safe drinking water, created water-saving irrigation systems for about 2.3 million hectares of farmland, and treated water and soil erosion on 41,000 square kilometers of land.

On World Water Day, which fell on Thursday, public campaigns were launched to raise awareness about conserving water.

Lake inspector Wang Ye knows all about the need to conserve water resources.

Wang works at Taihu Lake, which supplies water to the residents of the Yangtze River Delta.

In 2007, an algae outbreak in the lake led to a water crisis for the city of Wuxi.

“Nearly two million people had no clean water,” he said.

In the last 10 years, Wuxi has spent more than 50 billion yuan to fight pollution in the lake. And over 3,000 factories were closed, while 3,200 were relocated.

Every day, Wang takes a boat around the lake to collect data on water quality.

“The quality of the water has been restored to what it was 20 years ago,” he said.

Rising awareness is also leading to a more efficient use of water.

At the Shanghai Disney tourist resort, processed lake and river water is being used for irrigation and cleaning.

For water-guzzling activities, such as vegetable farming, more efficient methods are used.

In the parched northwest, farmers use plastic membranes to keep their corn seeds damp.

Farmers in Shitan village, in Gansu province, get 400 millimeters of rainfall every year.

So, Ran Wang’er, a corn farmer, said: “We try our best to conserve what nature gives us. And the membrane can be used for two years before it is recycled.”