The birds are flying over the lotus field,with lush grass growing everywhere. Honghu Lake, where a natural wetland of180,000 mu has been restored, iscontinually promoting the work of returning the protective embankment to thelake. At present, 50,800 mu ofembankment have been returned, and the ecological restoration of the area isbeing carried out. The target of 100,000 muof embankment returned to Honghu Lake is planned to be completed by the end ofJanuary next year.

In May 2017, Honghu Lake started thepreliminary work of returning the embankment to the lake. According to theinvestigation, there are 199,900 mu ofembankment in 473 places in the whole lake. The Master Plan for ReturningEmbankments to Lake has been compiled and evaluated. In July 2018, theprovincial government specified that 3 billion yuan of provincial local bondswere specifically used for the project of returning embankment to Honghu Lake (wetland).The project of returning 200,000 muof embankment to the Lake will be completed in three years and a sound ecologywill be returned here. According to Zhu Junhua, head of Honghu ReserveManagement Bureau, the fund is mainly used for the withdrawal of embankment,resettlement of fishermen, ecological restoration, etc. Nearly 15,000 fishermenare planned to go ashorewithin three years, withdraw from embankment aquaculture and return to Lake(wetland). Within five years, the resettlement of fishermen and ecologicalrestoration of the embankment area will be completed.

Previously, Jingzhou restored 180,000 mu of natural wetland in Honghu Lakethrough comprehensive measures such as purse net removal, fishermen landing, barrierclearance in the lake area and alien species control, and began to ban fishingin July last year. At present, the preliminary natural ecology of Honghu Lakehas been restored. Wild lotus has grown to nearly 100,000 mu in the reserve; wild soybean, Dryopteris japonica and other nationally protected plants have reappeared; and Eurasianspoonbill, small swan and other precious wildlife have returned to Honghu Lake.Overwintering waterfowls in Honghu Lake have exceeded 100,000, and more than20,000 migratory birds come to Honghu Lake to build nest and breed in summer.

However, Honghu has a large scope ofmanagement, a large span of business, and high requirements for administrativelaw enforcement. Before the suspension and exemption of relevant regulationsand fees by the state in 2015, there was a time when charging was emphasizedover law enforcement, which was listed as a problem for rectification by theCentral Environmental Protection Supervision Group. To deal with thisshortcoming, on the one hand, Honghu Reserve Administration Bureau insists oncarrying out work and enforcing laws with certificates, and strengthens legaltraining for law enforcement personnel; on the other hand, it strengthens dailymanagement and forms a working mechanism combining daily management withspecial action, water patrol with ashore publicity. At the same time, itestablishes cooperative mechanism with public security and pro-curatorialorgans. Since 2017, Honghu Public Security Bureau has designated two permanentpolice officers in the protection area to assist in handling illegal cases, andHonghu Procuratorate established in the area a stationed office. Through thesemoves, illegal actions were dealt with at its incipient stage and punished withsevere measures. In the past two years, Honghu reserve has carried out “Thunder”, a comprehensive lawenforcement, to investigate and deal with more than 40 cases involving fishingand wetland. At the same time, illegalities will firstly be dealt with criminalorgans, then public security, and finally administrative penalties. In thisway, the practice of prioritizing charging over law enforcement will beeliminated. In order to strengthen the management of the lake area after thedemolition, the Management Bureau of the Reserve also set up four 24-hour dutystations in the lake area to ensure that any spot will be reached in half anhour.

In order to cut off the pollution sources fromHonghu Lake, Jingzhou has promoted the treatment of domestic sewage, industrialwastewater and agricultural tail water in the whole basin. For domestic sewage,Jingzhou invested 1.36 billion yuan to carry out rainwater and sewagediversion, sewage outlet interception and black and odorous water specialtreatment in the central city, and started the preliminary work of thecomprehensive treatment project of water environment in the central city withan investment of 5.27 billion yuan; 2.59 billion yuan was invested to upgradeand build a new sewage treatment plant. In order to control industrialwastewater, Jingzhou shut down and relocated industrial enterprises, andrealized zero industrial enterprises within a kilometer of the lake. All thecentralized sewage treatment plants in six industrial parks above theprovincial level along the lake have been built, and the industrial wastewaterdischarged into the main canal of the Four Lakes has been reduced by more than20,000 tons every day. In order to control agricultural tail water, livestockand poultry farms (households) in the forbidden area along the main channel ofthe Four Lakes were all closed down and transferred, and all 1,244 large-scalefarms in the non-forbidden area completed standardized rectification andrenovation, and the discharge standard of aquaculture tail water in freshwaterponds was defined.

At the same time,Jingzhou explored the establishment of ecological compensation pilot projects,raised 70 million yuan to set up the Four Lakes Basin Ecological CompensationFund, and implemented “incentive and reward mechanism for water that meets thequality standard or improved water quality”, and “punishment mechanism forsubstandard or declined water quality”.