More than four-fifths of the wetlands along northern China’s biggest river system have dried up because of over-development, the state media reported yesterday in the latest warning of the dire environmental consequences of the country’s economic growth.
Fifty years ago, the Haihe river and its tributaries formed an ecologically rich area that included 1,465 square miles of wetlands. But in the years since, the expanding mega-cities of Beijing and Tianjin have sucked much of it dry. The Xinhua news agency reported that the wetlands have shrunk to 207 square miles.
Read the Xinhua report.
