Representing the pinnacle of a city's achievements in wetland ecological protection

In the 64th session of the Standing Committee of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, which was held in late January, the co-chair of the independent advisory committee announced the addition of 31 cities to the Wetland City Accreditation program. Nine Chinese cities made the list, namely, Fuzhou, Chongming, Dali, Hangzhou, Jiujiang, Lhasa, Suzhou, Wenzhou and Yueyang. The title of International Wetland City represents the pinnacle of a city's achievements in wetland ecological protection.

Wetlands are important ecological resources of Fuzhou. Fuzhou is home to 194,200 hectares of wetlands, where the wetland area ratio and the wetland conservation ratio stand at 15.14% and 55.33%, respectively, according to findings in the 3rd national land resource survey.

Fuzhou, where offshore and coastal wetlands, riverine wetlands, lakeside wetlands and constructed wetlands co-exist, boasts 1 nationally important wetland area, 8 provincially important wetland areas and 3 provincial level above wetland natural reserves.

(Text and Photo by Chen Muyi, Xu Wenyu and Lin Shuangwei)