Volunteer teams join hands in effort to protect the Yangtze River

The Yangtze River Protection Volunteer Service Alliance was established in Yichang on April 24, with 139 volunteer service teams across seven cities along the river joining. The volunteer forces along the Yangtze River will team up to push the Yangtze River protection work toward a stronger future.

Covering the entire river basin, the Yangtze River Protection Volunteer Service Alliance is a non-profit volunteer service organization, consisting of 36,335 volunteers from 139 volunteer teams including the already established and reputable Three Gorges Ant Workers, Yangtze River Sentinels and Finless Porpoise Guards. These scope of the volunteer teams includes the Yangtze River, Qing River, Juzhang River, Xiangxi River, Huangbai River and Yuyang River in Yichang. The alliance also liaisons with other volunteer counterparts in six cities along the Yangtze River, including Chongqing, Wuhan, Yueyang, Jiujiang, Wuhu and Nanjing.

In recent years, Yichang has placed the protection and restoration of the Yangtze River ecological environment as an utmost priority, in order to fully realize the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.

In the past five years, Yichang has dismantled and banned 216 piers and 134 sand quarries along the Yangtze River; 52,700 mu (3,513 hectares) of ecological greenery has been restored throughout the region; 97.6-kilometer shoreline of Yangtze River and 196-kilometer tributary shoreline have been repaired.

Now, the 232-kilometer ecological corridor and riverfront parks in Yichang serve as popular leisure and fitness spots for the public to enjoy. Many of the porpoise, which used to appear only in July, have settled down in the Yichang section of the Yangtze River, and can be seen all year round in the downstream waters of the Gezhouba Dam.

In addition to the governmental actions, this achievement could not have been made without the volunteers. Over the years, they have worked along the river, clearing the water and beach, and protecting the fisheries, helping to restore the Yangtze River ecosystem.

Volunteers from the Three Gorges Ant Workers team have been organizing themselves and picking up trash along the Yangtze River every weekend and public holiday since its establishment in 2016. Up to now, nearly 70,000 people have participated in these activities, and more than 1,100 tons of trash have been removed from the river.

In April 2017, through the effort of volunteer Liu Min, the non-profit organization Yichang Rice Straw Circle Eco-environmental Protection Public Welfare Center was established. In July 2018, Straw Circle launched a project with the local fishery administration to protect Yangtze finless porpoise, an endangered species. The volunteers conduct all-weather inspections within 60 kilometers from the Gezhouba Dam in the Yichang section of the Yangtze River, and assisted in cracking down on illegal fishing, electric fishing and poisonous fishing. The group now has its own patrol team of more than 100 retired fishermen.

In June 2018, the Yangtze River Sentinels was established to carry out river patrol, drift cleaning, beach cleaning and other volunteer services. The number of registrants has since reached 14,000.

Year in and day out, these volunteers walk or sail along the Yangtze River, cleaning up trash, maintaining coastal greenery and cleaning up river pollution, outlining and maintaining the beautiful Yangtze River landscape.