Aba in Sichuan: wetland reserve upgraded to national level

Ruoergai Wetland Reserve has has officially become a national level reserve. According to the Bureau of Forestry of the Aba Prefecture of Sichuan, this is the first national level wetland reserve in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

Covering a 2662.7 hectare area, the Ruoergai Wetland Reserve is an important component of the Nuorgai wetland which is the largest marsh worldwide preserving the most completed plateau peat-swamp wetland.

In February of 2011, the Ruoergai Wetland Reserve was approved to be a pilot location for carrying out development of other national level wetland parks.

Being formed by the main river ways of the White River and the Yellow River, the reserve belongs to the tributaries of the Yellow River. During the pilot construction process, the Nuorgai County focused on ecological recovery and paid attention to the marsh care, which accumulates an amount of investment numbering to 70 million RMB.

 In the areas of the main river ways belonging to the White River and the Yellow River, there have been more than 66,658,000 high-mountain willows planted, forming a protective belt which covers 99.69 hectare and an 18.2-hectare habitat for water birds, mostly black-necked cranes.

With planting the local plants, restoring the wetland vegetations the grassland surface square has been increased to 17.06 hectares. At the same time, an area of 180 square meters has been constructed which includes the inspection sites for amphibians, fish species and vegetations. A professional patrol team has been organized that will conduct patrol work once every month.

According to what was inspected, since December 2014, there are 9 couples of black-necked cranes breeding in the Ruoergai Wetland Reserve within one year, yet before 2012, there were only 5 to 6 couples every year.

Besides, according to the statistics, the number of tourists that Ruoergai Wetland Reserve has received increased from 110,000 person visits (before the pilot project carried out in 2011) to 1.7 million person visits in 2014, making the tourism income grow from 3.69 million yuan to to 28.54million yuan.