China will review planned dam that threatens fish

China’s environment ministry said Thursday that it has ordered an ecological assessment for a proposed Yangtze River dam that conservationists fear could threaten hundreds of fish species and drive the giant Chinese sturgeon into extinction.

Chinese environmentalists and scientists are trying to halt the Xiaonanhai dam, upstream from Chongqing city in mountainous western China, saying that it and two other dams would flood most of the last remaining fish reserve on the Yangtze, preventing the migration of rare fish.
China has pumped money into hydropower as part of plans to wean its economy off its dependency on coal. There are more than 25,800 large dams in China — more than any other country, according to International Rivers, a nonprofit group based in California.

But critics say the dams will obstruct the free flow of the river and threaten aquatic life.

In particular, the Xiaonanhai dam — along with two other dams planned for the stretch of river upstream of the Three Gorges Dam — would flood areas of the rare fish reserve, leaving less than 10 percent of its original size, a group of eight scientists and environmentalists wrote last month in the China Economic Times.

Some 338 species of fish live in the Yangtze River basin, 162 of them unique to the river, the article said.

The sturgeon, which can reach up to 16 feet (five meters) and weigh up to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms), is an endangered species and classified as a protected animal in China.

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