China GEF Wetlands Project Started Roundly

China GEF Wetlands Project Started RoundlyPreparation of Report on Project Startup and Training Planning have been Accomplished It has been recently known from GEF Wetlands Project Office of the State Forestry Administration (SFA) that since GEF Wetlands Project formally started in July 2000, it has got well along and is now in full swing. The tasks of examining the Wetlands nature reserves, preparing Report on Project Startup, and personnel-training planning have been accomplished.The project of “the Biodiversity Protection and Sustainable Use of Wetlands in China” (GEF Wetland Project for short), which is subsidized by the Global Environmental Fund, the United Nation Development Programme and Australia Development Aid Bureau together, is the biggest of the projects that UNDP and GEF are conducting in the wetland biodiversity field. It will lay stress on solving the threats faced by the wetland biodiversity in the project region especially the demonstration region, so as to promote the sustainable development of the wetlands and periphery areas, and strengthen the wetland protection at different levels from the Center to the localities and the competence construction of the management institutions. The term of this project is 5 years, and the total investment reaches 34.571 million U.S. dollars. The project region includes 4 wetlands -- the Sanjiang Plain wetland in Heilongjiang Province, the coastal wetland in Yancheng of Jiangsu Province, the Dongting Lake wetland in Hunan Province and the Ruoergai wetland in Sichuan and Gansu Provinces and involves 11 wetland nature reserves such as East Dongting Lake, Sanjiang, Yancheng, Shouqu, etc. These wetlands represent the important types of the Chinese wetland...