A long-running crackdown on illegal fishing along the Shanghai section of the Yangtze River has begun to bear fruit, the city’s fishery authority said yesterday.
The introduction late last year of round-the-clock patrols involving boats and helicopters has led to a significant reduction in unauthorized activity, it said.
The campaign was launched in response to reports of huge decreases in fish stocks in the river, whose ecological environment has been badly damaged by overfishing, pollution and the construction of hydropower plants, said Zhuang Ping, deputy director with the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute.
The populations of several species, including the herring and chub, have fallen by more than 90 percent in the past four decades, he said.
Many of the watercourses that the fish used to use for spawning have disappeared, and fish are dying out as a result, he said.
To repair the environment and allow time for fish populations to be revitalized, Zhuang has called for a decade-long ban on commercial fishing along the river.
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