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China dismantling aquafarms in Three Gorges

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-15 01:13

YICHANG (Hubei) - China began to demolish aquafarms adjacent to the Three Gorges Dam on Wednesday, affecting more than 600 culturists raising some 3,000 tonnes of fish.

Workers are dismantling aquafarm facilities in Zigui County in the upper reaches of the dam in an effort to ensure navigation safety and water quality, said Dong Jinfeng, director with the agricultural bureau of Zigui in Yichang City.

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About 181 households will have to sell out some 3,000 tonnes of live fish worth about 60 million yuan (8.79 million U.S. dollars) by the end of the month, the deadline of the demolition.

Those who comply with the campaign will get up to 3,000 yuan in compensation for each of the submerged case, according to a circular issued by the county government in September. Those who refuse to cooperate will get nothing in return.

The county registers 7,509 such cases, the basic facility to raise fish in the offshore water areas in the Yangtze River, over which the Dam was built.

The county government has pooled more than 16 million yuan for compensation.

Aquiculture has become a popular business for local migrants since 2003.

However, China issued an order in December last year to ban aquafarms around the dam area after finding out that the business posed threats to navigation safety and contaminated part of the river.

Fish raisers have to either sell out their fish stock or relocate the fish, including 1,500 tonnes of sturgeon, as soon as possible.

The sturgeon roe, or caviar, fetches about 500 U.S. dollars per kilogram in the domestic market.

Wang Heping, who invested 200,000 yuan in 2003 to establish 35 fish cases in the river, said he was willing to quit aquiculture.

The profit dropped as the price of feedstuff kept increasing in recent years, he said.

Wang used to earn 50,000 yuan a year but he was pessimistic about the future market. He was thinking of finding a place on the land to plant tea.