Photo shows the Hulan River estuary wetland park in Harbin City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. (Xinhua/Zhu Yue)
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Boasting rich wetland resources, Harbin City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has become a popular tourism destination in summer days this year.
Since the start of July, the search volume for "wetlands" in Harbin on Chinese e-commerce platform Meituan has increased 23 percent year on year, with the number of related travel tips surging 151 percent year on year, according to data from Meituan.
Recently, the number of tourist visits to the Hulan River estuary wetland park has significantly increased, reaching about 5,000 on weekends, according to Zhang Huan, the park's operation manager.
The park gives priority to wetland ecosystem conservation. Meanwhile, it provides diversified services for visitors to do exercises and enjoy recreational activities.
As one of the Chinese cities certified as "International Wetland Cities", Harbin has been stepping up wetland conservation and restoration efforts.
It has implemented the medium- and long-term wetland protection plan (2019-2035), and rolled out wetland protection measures, a work plan for wetland ecological conservation and restoration, as well as an implementation plan for the enforcement of the national wetland protection law, securing law-based protection endeavors aiming to enhance the quality of wetlands, according to Xing Guangyou, director of wetlands and natural reserves management division of Harbin municipal forestry and grassland administration.
Wetland parks have established relevant management mechanisms. For example, Alejin Island national wetland park has introduced wetland protection management system, wildlife protection and rescue system, water quality monitoring and management system and so on. The national level wetland park covers an area of 419 hectares, of which 71.1 percent are wetlands.
Through years of efforts, Harbin has restored more than 3,000 hectares of wetlands, and reverted cultivated land into 685 hectares of wetlands.
Harbin's achievements in wetland protection have earned good returns. Approximately one million tourist visits are made to Harbin each year, creating a total income hitting tens of billions of yuan for the city.
(Edited by Su Dan with Xinhua Silk Road, sudan@xinhua.org)
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