Luoyang's 49.7-Thousand-Hectare Wetlands to Enter the Best Season for Bird Watching

The 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2022 (COP14) kicked off on November 5 in China and will be closed on November 13. 

Luoyang, a city of wetlands, stretches across the basins of the Yellow River, Huai River and Yangtze River, with rivers and lakes scattered around it and an abundance of wetland resources. In recent years, Luoyang has been implementing the Strategy for the Ecological Protection and High-quality Development of the Yellow River Basin, actively making efforts towards the Wetland City Accreditation, and taking wetland retention, wetland protection and wetland restoration as important elements of ecological protection. Meanwhile, the city has been taking strong measures in renovating and cleansing the shorelines of rivers and lakes, monitoring wetland resources through dynamic approaches, and constantly promoting wetland protection and restoration, reaching milestones one after another. 

So far, Luoyang has built a system of wetland protection encompassing national-level wetland reserves, national-level wetland parks, provincial-level wetland parks and urban wetland parks, including the Yellow River Wetland National Nature Reserve, two national-level wetland parks of Luhun Lake in Song County and Yi River in Yichuan County, Xizi Lake in Luoning County, and 10 other provincial-level wetland parks. The total area of wetlands in Luoyang reaches 49,700 hectares, topping other cities in northern China. 

With the persistent efforts on ecological protection of wetlands, habitats of birds and scales of their population have been restored and recovered. Nowadays, wetlands in Luoyang have observed a record of 431 species of birds, among which more than 70 rare and endangered species including the black storks, Chinese mergansers, and Baer's pochards come to Luoyang in winter every year.  (Source: lyd.com.cn)