Aerial shots from a manned airship of the China Media Group recorded the green environment along the Yangtze River in Wuhan City of central China's Hubei Province.
The environment along the river has changed greatly over the past 10 years as China shifted from heavy industrial use of the river to the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, an initiative introduced in 2016 to prioritize ecology and green development.
To restore the ecology along the river in Wuhan, the local government introduced nearly 150 environmental protection projects for the local Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation, shut down 26 docks along the river and replaced them with parks for high green coverage over the past decade.
Today, water quality on the main stem of the once "seriously ill" river has reached levels once thought unattainable, while fish are returning to stretches where spawning had long ceased.
"As a native living by the Yangtze River for so long, I deeply feel for the tremendous changes in recent years. The grand protection of the Yangtze is not about simply fencing it off. Instead, it involves what should be retreated, restored, cleaned up and returned -- to return the shoreline to the nature, let the water quality become clean, air fresher, (so the place) become a good place for citizens to get close to the water, to get relaxed and do exercises," said Qin Zunwen, secretary-general of the Yangtze River Economic Belt High-Quality Development Think Tank Alliance.
Ten years on, through strict ecological safeguards, structural economic reform and technology-driven governance, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, spanning 11 provinces and municipalities and accounting for nearly half of China's GDP, is offering a glimpse of how China aims to reconcile growth with long-term environmental resilience.
Aerial shots record green environment along Yangtze River at Wuhan
