Dali forges ecological corridor for Erhai Lake

The "Mother Lake" of Dali prefecture, Erhai is the 2nd largest freshwater lake in Yunnan province. To minimize the eco-damages caused by constructions in the past years, Dali now proposes to builds up an ecological corridor to better protect the Erhai Lake. 

As a monitoring system for the Erhai Lake, the ecological corridor will make up the continuous green belts in urban Dali. Connecting the ecological factors of the urban and rural areas in Dali, the corridor can facilitate material exchanges among various ecosystems, balancing the regional ecology.

In building ecological corridor, the mother lake of Erhai will be replenished, and citizens in Dali will have more green area for fresh air and leisure. Riding, walking, and taking pictures will be popular entertainments within the eco- corridor. 

By the end of 2020, Dali will have finished building the 129km framework of the ecological corridor, which is expected to reduce the area’s earth pollution, improve water quality and sustain the lake’s ecosystem.

Over the years, Dali prefecture has taken actions, launching eight environmental campaigns and identifying the protected areas. Lake-side folks were resettled, with the nearby wetland areas restored. 

In 2018 and 2019, Erhai recorded clearer water, which was graded as level II for seven months and level III for five months in each year. 

Reporting by Huang Xingneng and Chen Fei (Yunnan Daily); trans-editing by Wang Shixue